If Sen. John McCain pulls off the Nov. 4 comeback he’s predicting, it won’t be any thanks to Sheldon Adelson, who puts his mouth where his money is. (Hence those queasy-making odes to Chinese totalitarianism: “People seem to be living a good life in China. Look at the incredible progress China has made. How can someone say they’re doing the wrong thing?“)
Politico reports that, stung by the hornet’s nest that is present-day Wall Street, Adelson has “pulled the plug” on one of his pet projects, Freedom’s Watch.* The latter’s “neverending campaign” has downsized from an artillery barrage ($200 million in planned expenditures this election cycle) to the rattle of small-arms fire ($30 million).
Small wonder, then, that Las Vegas Sands spokesman Ron Reese airily informed the Washington Post that “Mr. Adelson does not comment on his political activity.” Except when he does, of course.
I’ve long wondered if Adelson’s high-profile GOP affiliation worked against him in Kentucky, where Sands found the door rudely slammed in its face. Mind you, the object of Gov. Steve Beshear‘s bromance, Columbia Sussex CEO William J. Yung III, has also been a lifetime Republican backer — until he saw how the chips were falling, so to speak, in the Bluegrass State. Whereupon he strewed Beshear’s path with greenbacks.
As politically polluted as Pennsylvania‘s casino-selection process has been (Give Democratic, get a casino!), at least one right call was made: Handed a choice between a Yung-backed Allentown project and Adelson’s Sands Bethelehem, Pennsylvania regulators opted for the GOP-friendly mogul with a track record of impressive projects, not the one who would shortly become a synonym for insolvency.
* — Back when Adelson’s wallet was still open, conservative activists used to bitch extravagantly (but always anonymously) about how many strings he would attach to the use of what was, after all, his money.
