“The kind of man who demands that government enforce his ideas is always the kind whose ideas are idiotic.” ― H.L. Mencken
This weekend Sheldon Adelson (gambling billionaire) held court in Las Vegas – ostensibly hosting a Republican Jewish Coalition shindig. But the weekend’s real purpose was for potential 2016 GOP candidates to go through their paces before the man who would make the king. The “Adelson primary” if you will.
Thank the Supreme Court and its perverse judgement in Citizens United.
Thank the Supreme Court for this.
Adelson’s money has already helped decide one election. He greased Obama’s skids by financing Newt Gingrich’s futile quest – thus forcing Mitt Romney to tack so far right, for so long, that he alienated independents. An alienation cemented by Gingrich’s devastating apothegm “vulture capitalist” – a “swift-boating” that turned Romney’s long suit into a millstone.
So it is ironic that Newt Gingrich is now bemoaning the influence of billionaire money in politics. However, it isn’t that Gingrich rues the explosion of cash in the political process. Rather, his solution to too much money in politics, is more money in politics.
Adelson does not want to see this in 2016
Adelson learned a lesson from 2012. No more vanity candidates. Only those with a real chance of winning need apply – people such as Ex-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
Note: Jeb Bush will emerge from the weekend as the smart-money’s choice. Walker and Kasich have to survive and prosper through re-elections. And Christie showed that he lacked the skills to play in the big leagues after telling a Jewish audience of flying over Israel’s neighboring “occupied territories”.
Why is Adelson so invested in politics? If only it were that he was motivated by a deep love of country, but his interests are a lot more personal. He is a gambling man, who is stridently opposed to online gambling – because who will go to his casinos if they can bet at home? So he is fighting – dollar by dollar – to ensure that punters, eager to lose the farm, have to trek to one of his shearing sheds to do so.
Sheldon Adelson is in the market for a house.
But, I hear you argue, why are free-market loving Republicans so attentive to Adelson’s competition-crushing desires? Alas, it is because their avowed love of the free market is a political platitude. In practice they make supplicatory pilgrimages to Mammon’s throne – soliciting cash in return for rigging the market to their patron’s favor.
It should come as no surprise. Politicians will say anything to get elected. And do anything to keep the money coming.
