Hillary Racks Up Gambling Lobby Support

LAS VEGAS -- On the eve of the crucial Nevada Democratic Presidential Debate, set for Thursday night, candidate Hillary Clinton has racked up the public endorsement of some of the state's most influential gambling industry executives and advocates.

The Clinton campaign has unveiled the formation of the Nevada Business Leadership Council led by Jan Jones, a former Las Vegas Mayor and a current top executive of and lobbyist for national gambling mega-corporation Harrah's Entertainment.

Harrah's operates more than two dozen casinos nationwide, including the landmark Rio in Las Vegas.

Also prominent among the new pro-Hillary business group is Phil Satre, former chairman and CEO of Harrah's and a veteran leader in the Vegas gambling industry. Vegas.com CEO Howard Lefkowitz, Henry Terry, Executive Director of Human Resources of Playlv Gaming Operations, and Punam Mather, a Senior Vice President at the casino-owning MGM Mirage Corp. MGM Mirage operates and own a series of mega-resort casinos including the Bellagio, Mirage and the MGM Grand.

There was a time when gambling money could taint a political campaign, Las Vegas-based historian Michael Green told the HuffPost. But those days are long gone. 'It was former Senator Paul Laxalt who once quipped that in Nevada turning down money from the gambling industry would be like refusing support from GM in Detroit."

"The larger gaming corporations are enormous industries that provide not only huge infusions of campaign cash but also votes," Green said. "Their money buys you TV ads, campaign staff, and direct mail and while I don't want to suggest a direct connection, let's just say that thousands of casino employees suddenly become very aware of who their bosses would like you to support in the ballot box."

Clinton's high-visibility foray into the gaming-dominated Nevada business community pairs up with the significant stack of endorsements she has already collected from the state's Democratic political establishment. Her statewide campaign is led by Rory Reid, son of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and current chair of the powerful Clark County Commission which encompasses the greater Las Vegas metropolitan area.

The announcement of the new surge of gaming support for Clinton while significant doesn't represent a necessarily unified view of the industry. The larger casino corporations have a tradition of spreading around their political contributions, effectively hedging their bets. Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire proprietor of The Venetian hotel and casino is a major supporter and funder of GOP causes and candidates. Elaine Wynn, wife of gambling mogul Steve Wynn and Director of the sparkling Wynn casino, joined the Barack Obama campaign last summer. In 1996, the gambling industry gave so much cash to Republican candidate Bob Dole that he became known as "Vegas Bob."

No question, however, that Senator Clinton -- whose aura of inevitability in capturing the Democratic nominaiton has recently been dimmed-- is escalating her efforts to line up key support groups here in the Silver State whose January 19 caucuses will be among the first three in the nation.

"Business has been a cornerstone of the Clinton campaign, and Senator Clinton has been remarkable in terms of finding the balance between supporting organized labor and still recongnizing the importance of building a strong business community," Harrah's exec Jones told reporters in a conference call announcing the formation of the business council.

Endorsement of organized labor, representing nearly 15% of Nevada workers, has also been zealously sought by the rival Democratic candidates. But to date, the two most powerful unions -- the Culinary Workers and the Service Employees-- have yet to give the nod to any single candidate,

Comments

[volum]

I'm not a HRC defender. I just think it's retarded beyond imagination the level the HuffPo sinks to to smear her at any given moment.

She's reaching to the Drudge level.

[MyLadyMacbeth]

so let me get this straight -if a union or group supports Hillary it is a bad thing but if they support Obama or Edwards it is a good thing?Let's have some ground rules here please.

[Lasthorseman]

Gambling! Yes we have discovered yet another Illuminati sponsored destruction of America theme! Supported by the Dems. Deval Patrick, newly selected governor of mAssachusetts is doing the very same thing!

[chronic]

What do you idiots expect a Democrat to beat The Republican Crime Syndicate with?

A prayer or peanuts??

[Independent voter]

Big surprise, eh?

The lobbist owned proxy candidate takes more money from lobbyists.

Keep on panderin' harpy. Of course we believe you when you say that you been fightin' them special interests for 35 years. Not.

[Quaoar]

And support from the Gambling Lobby is bad because...?

[JMark64]

...and...

[KRANKY]

Gee...maybe she can get the endorsements of Bill Bennett and Trump!
She will wrap up the virtuous chinchilla demographic!

[Hopalongpoppyseed]

"If you can’t take their money, drink their whiskey, screw their women, and vote against ‘em anyway, you don’t belong in the Legislature” is a quote by Molly Ivins (1944-2007) that’s often attributed to Texas politics. It was first used by Jesse Unruh (1922-1987) in California politics in the 1970s. Unruh was talking then about lobbyists.

[BUSHsurvivor]

Ahhh, fellow dems...what do we do when the nominations are in and we have a chosen dem and a chosen repug going at it in the general election...and the repugs are raking in loads of cash for campaigning? As the laws currently are now, is there anyone breaking the law?

We complain about the lobbying, but their contributions ARE needed. We need to pick a candidate who will say to the lobbyists look, the people come first and that person needs to find some way to balance everything out.

During President Clinton's term, to me, it seemed like everyone prospered, the average American all the way to the richest CEO. During Bush's terms ONLY the rich continue to get richer and the average American struggles! This is the difference between the policies of the two parties, at least during the last 16 years.

The lobbyists are there, but one doesn't have to sell their soul to the devil to get their support.

Hillary get's their endorsement...good for her, but what she does with it if anything is what counts. As goes the same for any candidate!

[repubesnivel]

Since there will never be a hit piece on Obama, I'm going to post this once in a while..until I get kicked off...

Obama says he has no Illinois records
By MIKE BAKER and CHRISTOPHER WILLS, Associated Press Writers
35 minutes ago



RALEIGH, N.C. - Barack Obama, who's been scolding Hillary Rodham Clinton for not hastening the release of records from her time as first lady, says he can't step up and produce his own records from his days in the Illinois state Senate. He says he hasn't got any.
"I don't have — I don't maintain — a file of eight years of work in the state Senate because I didn't have the resources available to maintain those kinds of records," he said at a recent campaign stop in Iowa. He said he wasn't sure where any cache of records might have gone, adding, "It could have been thrown out. I haven't been in the state Senate now for quite some time
Obama's statement that he has no papers from his time in the Illinois statehouse — he left in 2004 — stands in stark contrast to the massive Clinton file stored at the National Archives: an estimated 78 million pages of documents, plus 20 million e-mail messages, packed into 36,000 boxes. While any file from Obama's time in the state Senate would be far smaller, the idea that no papers exist at all is questioned by one historian
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071114/ap_on_el_pr/democrats_records;_ylt=Akq0sKZlTfHXyLQdiFysK9Ws0NUE

[williamg]

Great! She is now actively pandering to the degenerate loser industry.

[grannysharp]

of course Hillary is trying to sew up Los Vegas she has a lobbyist putting the screws on every one

[volum]

And Obama invested $50K in companies who would become his biggest donors. Why isn't HuffPo writing any articles about this?

Oh, one of his biggest donors is currently the center of an FBI inquiry into public corruption, yet HuffPo continues to ignore it.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/07/news/obama.php

[wadenelson1]

I'm sure the Vegas interests are willing to contribute millions, if not billions, to a(ny) Presidential candidate willing to help them get online gambling legalized.

Press: Here are your questions for the candidates:

Do you support the legalization of online gambling in the United States?

What assurance do consumers possibly have that a game of chance played over the Internet isn't "rigged?"