State treasurer gets behind Clinton’s bid for presidency

Marshall, a Democrat elected to her first term last year, is the first currently serving statewide elected official of either party to announce an allegiance to a presidential campaign. But she is merely the latest in a long list of prominent Nevada Democrats to line up with Clinton, who seems to be steamrolling the field in the Silver State.

Marshall said Thursday that she also was approached by the campaigns of Chris Dodd, John Edwards, Barack Obama and Bill Richardson but felt that Clinton had the strongest and most detailed economic platform.

“In Nevada, we have a growing economy, and it’s very important to keep it growing,” Marshall said. “She (Clinton) doesn’t think we need to be a debtor nation. She understands that we need to live within our means, that tax dollars are not an unlimited credit card for government.”

Marshall said fiscal issues haven’t gotten much attention in a campaign focused on social issues and foreign policy, but she is focused on them. She faulted the Bush administration for racking up debt and issuing no-bid contracts.

Clinton’s Northern Nevada campaign chairwoman, former state Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa, once hired Marshall away from the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., to establish an antitrust division in the attorney general’s office. But she said Thursday that her influence wasn’t what brought Marshall on board.

“Kate Marshall is one of the clearest thinking, most intelligent people I know,” she said. “This is strictly her decision. She’s a person who knows her own mind.”