Some Wynn, some of the time

Having been eclipsed both as a political mover and shaker, and — dare I say it? — casino developer by Sheldon Adelson, the suddenly ubiquitous Steve Wynn appears to be trying to regain the spotlight. His recent KSNV-TV marathon landed with a faint ‘plop’ in print media — unless you count Catholic Online — but got him a soapbox on cable-news channels. Despite looking quite bleary-eyed in a CNBC appearance from Düsseldorf (sorry, no embed available), El Steve offers stock tips, displays excellent German pronunciation and marshals his facts more effectively than in his arm-flailing Face to Face stemwinder. In other words, he took a massive Chill Pill. But gawd … is Baron Capital CEO Ron Baron a shameless ass-kisser or what? If Wynn is surrounding himself with sycophants like Baron it’d be no wonder that he sometimes seems out of touch with what most of us define as real life.

Wynn definitely states his case far better when he knows he’s playing to a national audience, instead of just venting in the general direction of the nearest journalist he can find. However, the Culinary Union should prick up its ears at the 13-minute mark, where his meds wear off and he starts spouting anti-union blather. Wynn’s relationship with the Culinary has been one of the most proactive on the Strip — including floating its health program a loan recently — but if he thinks unions should be driven out of the school system, does he also believe Wynn Resorts would be better off with a non-union workforce? D. Taylor, take note!

It’s a reasonable question. As you can see for yourself, Wynn likes to think of himself as a benevolent Great Father and no doubt sincerely believes he could take better care of his workforce all by his lonesome. But what’s the likelihood that a Wynn employee’s standard of living would improve if the Culinary was locked out? How long would El Steve’s best intentions prevail against the bottom-feeding tendencies of Wall Street and right-hand woman Marilyn (Winn) Spiegel? The only reason Las Vegas Sands offers competitive wages and benefits is due to the upward pressure exerted upon it by all the unionized houses on the Strip. Adelson even admits as much. If he could, Sheldon would probably pay you a penny an hour and expect your gratitude in return.

CNBC fares better than Fox Business, which had to settle for unemployed CEO Steve Odland, who gives a secondhand version of Wynn’s point of view. I apologize for exposing you to the irritating whine of Neil Cavuto, a purveyor of hackneyed casino metaphors who scarcely bothers to query poor Odland but just shovels whole paragraphs into his mouth. (It’s more akin to ventriloquism than journalism.) As for approximately 10,000 views constituting a “YouTube sensation,” it sounds like a stretch to me. I’ve got S&G postings that have more hits than that, Neil, and I’m definitely no Steve Wynn.

One-upping Cavuto, Greta Van Susteren was able to get an active CEO to come on her program. Overstock.com‘s Patrick Byrne has a pretty acute perception of Wynn’s personality and longtime Steve-watchers can vouch for the accuracy with which he describes his colleague. He’s also refreshingly unencumbered by the Great Man Theory of History, intellectual baggage under which Wynn and Adelson continue to labor.