Steve Wynn is influencing the race not with campaign contributions but indirectly, via the Restore Our Future (number one amongst "Super PACs") and Crossroads GPS funds. So if you see a TV ad from one of those two, it is probably Wynn’s fine hand at work. The mogul recently vacationed with Crossroads founder Karl Rove in Capri, whither he had flown him upon a chartered jet, a perk valued by Politico.com at "tens of thousands of dollars."
Wynn has made no secret of his desire to have the ear of the next occupant of the Oval Office, frequently dispensing indignant economic nostrums via cable-news channels -- including quoting Broadway musicals on Fox News. Just how much Wynn has dispensed into Super PAC coffers is unknown, particularly since he does not make a habit of bragging loudly about his spending habits – a foible that has rendered Sheldon Adelson a slightly toxic associate.
Caesars Entertainment CEO Gary Loveman, who lists Wellesley, Mass., as his place of residence, hasn’t donated to a presidential campaign in eight years, but is a regular giver to Caesars Entertainment PAC. Its donations to Reid’s Searchlight Leadership Fund, in turn, benefit a wide array of Democratic candidates. Caesars itself has donated $150,000 to Majority PAC, whose aims are the same as Reid’s.
Since many casino companies (like Caesars) have, through leveraged buyouts and bad fiscal policy, fallen into the hands of investment banks and private equity firms, they are surrogates in Wall Street’s war to roll back post-Crash regulation. Once you take Adelson out of the picture, these are the real moneymen of the 2012 election and theirs is the largest donor pool. Caesars is co-owned by Apollo Management and Texas Pacific Group. Apollo CEO Leon Black is a generous Romney backer while TPG CEO David Bonderman is a former John McCain donor who’s playing it cool for the moment. However, several TPG underlings have made six-figure donations to Restore Our Future, as have Apollo co-founder Marc Rowan and his wife. Colony Capital boss Tom Barrack, whose foray into gaming was spectacularly disastrous (Station Casinos, Las Vegas Hilton, Atlantic City Hilton, Resorts International, etc.), hasn’t made a major federal-level donation since 2006.
However, Barrack’s firm had, as of Feb. 15, put $10,000 toward the Romney campaign. Stratosphere, Arizona Charlie’s and Las Vegas Hotel & Casino owner Goldman Sachs was one of the top 10 "bundlers" to Romney’s primary campaign. Business Week penetrated a 2011 private equity confab in Boca Raton, Fl., where it found PE executives nibbling on brie-stuffed French toast" and singing Romney’s praises. As Sun Capital Partners co-founder Marc Leder told Business Week, "It’s kind of hard for Romney to come across being a regular Joe. But put him in a room full of 400 business guys that are all successful, that relate to him, he comes off beautifully."
