Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | February 2012 26 In Focus in the mid-‘90s when Mr Gingrich was riding high as speaker of the House and leader of the “Republican Revolution” that ended 40 years of Democratic dominance in the lower chamber and Mr Adelson was lobbying for passage of a bill to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which Mr Gingrich supported. The measure sailed through Congress, but every president since Clinton has refused to implement it. Mr Gingrich says he will. Later, when Mr Adelson was building The Venetian in Las Vegas and fighting to keep the Culinary Union out of his resort and its pickets off the sidewalks in front of it (which he claimed to own), he tried to have them arrested, and when the police refused, Mr Gingrich dropped in during a fund- raising tour to lend support. Mr Adelson would lose the battle for the sidewalks, but he won a victory in the Nevada Legislature with a law forbidding labour organisations from spending members’ dues on political activities. The Venetian and Palazzo are still non-union. Says Mr Rogich, “They share a common support for the causes that are important to each other, and they have continued to share that over the years.” In certain ways they are very much alike. Restless, impatient, intensely combative, they both thirst after greatness. Both are enamoured of the bigness of an idea, and their lives have unfolded as a relentless battle against the conventional minds that would thwart their ambitions. In Mr Gingrich’s case, it wasn’t the Democrats that brought about his downfall in Congress; it was his own party. But then both men perceive enemies everywhere; or rather, it seems they avidly pursue them, like warriors who take pride in displaying the scars inflicted by those they’ve slain. It inspires them to see themselves as the underdog. It feels heroic. It’s a crowded self-image. A rebel and a bulwark exist there side by side, a builder and a destroyer. Much as Mr Adelson sees himself as the father of modern LasVegas, Mr Gingrich sees the conservative movement in America as the child of his singular vision. Which makes them watershed figures in their view, and both seem obsessed with cementing a place in history; Mr Adelson with architectural monuments that command the labour of thousands and cost billions, Mr Gingrich with a complex and overlapping network of businesses and non- profits encompassing books, collectibles, DVDs, broadcast media, schools, think tanks and high-priced consulting services— Gingrich Communications, Gingrich Productions, Newt.org, the Gingrich Group, and more—a sprawling octopus of self- promotional tentacles that he and wife No. 3, a former congressional aide 23 years his junior, affectionately refer to as “Newt World”. Mr Adelson would pour more than US$7 million into the principal arm of Mr Gingrich’s political machine between 2006 and 2010. Organised as a non-profit, it would burn through US$52 million before it was disbanded last year when Mr Gingrich left it to run for president. As the Post noted, “Perhaps no other major presidential candidate in recent times has had his fortunes based so squarely on the contributions of a single donor, as Gingrich has on Adelson.” Business vs. Friendship As one of the states hardest-hit by the recession and the collapse of the housing market, the Florida primary exposed the gaping holes in Mr Gingrich’s appeal. His talent for expressing broad principles and grand themes—and he does have a flair for rhetoric—plays well among certain segments of the ultra-right, but he is vague and erratic on bread-and-butter issues and comes off as undisciplined intellectually. And he’s a man with a past. He was slapped with scores of ethics charges during his five years as speaker of the House of Representatives and ultimately was reprimanded by the chamber and fined for violating federal tax law. A political liability at that point, his fellow Republicans had to wrestle the speaker’s chair from him, and in 1999 he resigned his congressional seat in a fit of pique, his public image in tatters. He has never held elected office since and never has regained broad support within the mainstream of the party. Trailing more baggage than Marley’s Ghost, he was vulnerable in Florida when Romney slammed him for influence-peddling in connection with the big fees he collected from a government-sponsored mortgage giant that was disgraced in the housing crisis. Nearly half of Florida’s home mortgages are underwater, and the rate of foreclosures is sixth-highest in the nation. But then Mr Gingrich’s talk of colonies on the moon hardly could have endeared him to voters in a state with 10% unemployment. And there are a couple of jilted ex-wives who refuse to go quietly, and this has bruised him to some extent with women voters and hasn’t helped him with the “family-values” crowd and fundamentalist Protestants, a core Republican constituency that isn’t too crazy either about his close ties to a gambling boss. If Florida was the beginning of the end for him, and that’s the consensus of the experts, how long will it be before business and friendship part ways? “That’s a good question,”Mr Ralston says, “whether [Mr Adelson] is going to continue to fund a losing campaign or whether he’s not. I think he’ll wait and see what happens. My guess is that Gingrich will ask him, or someone close to Gingrich, will ask him for more money.” If anyone had some insight into Mr Adelson’s thinking last month it was a wealthy Texas venture capitalist and lobbyist named Fred Zeidman. He serves as vice chairman of the Republican Jewish Coalition, whose board includes Mr Adelson, and he heads the US Holocaust Memorial Council, a favourite recipient of the casino owner’s largesse, and he’s a friend, and he’s strong for Romney. Speaking just before the Nevada caucuses, he told The New York Times that “Sheldon is committed to keeping [Mr Gingrich] in the race as long as he wants to stay in.” Published reports have it that Mr Adelson also has assured the Romney camp that they can count on his chequebook when the time comes. He will not be distracted from the “overriding issue,” Mr Zeidman said, “which is beating Barack Obama.” This photo, from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), shows from left to right, Mitt Romney chatting with Mel Sembler and Sheldon Adelson, major backers of the Republican Jewish Coalition, at the RJC’s winter leadership conference helped in April 2011 at Mr Adelson’s the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas.