
There’s probably no great moral arm wrestling among most people who place an occasional wager in the office pool during the baseball playoffs. It likely doesn’t upset millions of Americans to toss a five-spot on a football game at the pub. For that matter, nobody would want to chastise grandma for hitting the bingo parlor at her local church once in a while, either.
Putting our national trust in a lifelong gambler — as presidential candidate John McCain is — should perhaps be a significant concern, however. Even fellow conservatives have taken issue with McCain’s propensity to dabble at the craps tables, where he’s known to sling chips like pennies to a panhandler.
McCain has done more than dabble historically with the gaming business, though.
Peace pipes are expensive for cheaters
He has been instrumental in the rapid growth of Indian gaming for most of his legislative career, co-authoring the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988, which essentially opened the flood gates for reservation casinos. Track his senatorial history on deregulation, however, and the conclusion is, he’s a hands-off type of non-regulatory maverick/dictator.
During his 2000 bid for the highest office in the land — while he was concurrently a member of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee — he hit the tables with a lobbyist representing the Foxwood Resort Casino in Connecticut who evidently was currying his favor.
According to an investigative piece by The New York Times, not only was he slinging $100 chips at the table like candy to a diabetic, but was “skewered by the Republican Party’s evangelical base,” the conservative faction that is deeply opposed to games of chance.
“No biggie,” the less risk-prurient of his party might try convincing current backers to believe. But the more conservative faction of the Republican Party saw his late-night table shenanigans as a feeding frenzy for the competition. The Right Wing blasted him for his frequent displays of “liberal” dice-addiction and unsuccessfully asked him to quit.
Blow on my dice, Lucky
McCain lost the nomination to our now-infamous lame duck largely because of lost support related to his refusal to part ways with gambling lobbyists, insiders told The Times investigative reporters.
During his lawmaking tenure, McCain has let Las Vegas power lobbyists comp him at casinos, and has completely ignored warnings from confidants about his negative public appearances at the tables. His monthly late-night forays into Vegas establishments crossed the conservative line as he peddled legislative influence far west of the Capitol Beltway.
Not only has McCain gussied himself up for Las Vegas lobbyists promising campaign contributions, according to the investigation, but he took mega bucks from American Indian tribal lobbyists in the initial stages of helping build their current “$26-billion-a-year behemoth.” That toss of the dice has since offended Vegas interests by capturing one-third of the national gaming purse.
Time to switch tables, Kemo Sabe?
McCain’s misdirected loyalties created a philosophical quandary over whose money to take. If big gambling is your major source of soft revenue, who should you sell your ass to?
To atone for his regulatory oversights, McCain essentially pitted one Native American contingency against another in battles over tribal recognition and gaming rights. In essence, McCain pulled the divide and conquer strategy used by colonial American land grabbers to deprive Indians of their basic rights. Only this time the “Manifest —or Man-the-bets — Destiny” included capital gains and questionable campaign contributions.
It seems like a contradictory McCain surfaced at the gaming tables following his 2000 promise to “fight to take our government back from the power brokers and special interests….”
Change the dice, please
It’s one thing that a heroic candidate of McCain’s stature picked a hardly known running mate with potentially scrupulous practices of her own. Conservative journalists are saying Sarah Palin is a bad bet. Many voters will see McCain’s haste in choosing a running partner as a much needed gamble to counter his penchant for kowtowing to special interest groups. After all, Palin fights bureaucracy and lobbyists, right?
The British website politicalbetting.com sets current odds at 2-1 that McCain will soon dump Palin in favor of a less risky running mate.
When looking at snake eyes on the cloth, though, the damning evidence gathered by The Times begs McCain’s damage-control pit crew to grapple with answering the question, “Does what happens in Vegas really stay in Vegas?
Sen. John McCain is a true American hero and will save our cuontry from illegal immigration. If he gambles sometime it only means he is doing more to help the economy that is only messed up because of illegal imigrants.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with gambling with your own money. There is also nothing wrong with not telling the public how many houses you own. That’s his personal business and this great American war hero deserves to be able to spend it anyway he wishes. He’s paid his dues and earned the right to do whatever he wants.
It’s funny that the McCain campaign is crying about how unfair the mainstream media is, when in truth, hardly any are reporting on McCain’s gambling and lobbying addiction. Where was coverage of the largest protest ever held in Alaska about Sarah Palin’s manipulation of her own bureaucracy. It shouldn’t be “troopergate” it should be “Sarahgate.”
Maybe John is trying to win back the $700 billion his pal W. just lost on Wall Street or the $3 trillion the war in Iraq is expected to cost. These ‘conservatives’ will drive us all to the poor house and laugh as they drive away in limos.