Confronted with a bunch of mossbacked codgers (the Las Vegas Review-Journal editorial board) and a backwater newspaper whilst warming up for his Venetian gig tonight, Mitt Romney must have figured he had the luxury of thinking aloud. What happens here, stays here, right? Las Vegas has the highest foreclosure rate in the nation and Romney’s blasé comment that evictions should “run [their] course and hit the bottom,” thereby allowing carrion-hunting “investors” to scoop up all that devalued inventory became headline material. Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV) was quick to push back, saying Romney’s “plan could take up to six to eight years for recovery … time that Nevada just does not have.” Yes, but it does get Herman Cain out of the hot seat in tonight’s version of Survivor at the Sands Expo Center. (The Ritz-Carlton pluggery is a wee bit disingenuous, given that the hotel was way, way out at Lake Las Vegas and has undergone lengthy financial tribulations, White House gaffes notwithstanding. It eventually lost the Ritz-Carlton flag and was resurrected as Ravella, by the way, developments of which Marriott board member Romney is seemingly incognizant.)
And did the famously staid candidate pledge, at 7:45, to plug Vegas as a convention destination, if elected? Campaign promises are as valid as Confederate money … but we like the sound of that one. And how about turning ‘9/9/9’ into a new slot-game theme? It’s catchier than most of the stuff I saw at G2E.
Update: In possible attempt to regain the favor of former sugar daddy Sheldon Adelson, a certain Newt Gingrich gave Vegas a tourism plug during tonight’s beauty contest. At least Adelson’s nemeses at the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority will be appreciative.
Don’t worry about Romney. Stick with Obama and his compatriot, your Senator Harry Reid, who just pronounced, “The private sector is doing just fine.” He obviously has not noticed the state of the economy (decimated housing market, unemployment, half-built structures abandoned and decaying) in Las Vegas. Maybe he will on his next trip home. Who knows.
Agreed — and if you think it’s bad now, imagine what will happen in Vegas if the foreclosure rate is allowed to accelerate (not that the current administration is doing jack to help, but I digress). SalesTraq President Larry Murphy estimates that a 10,000-house “shadow inventory” of bank-owned homes could swell to 110,000 houses under those circumstances. It’s one of those statistics that makes me seriously ponder whether or not Las Vegas has passed its historical apex. Off the Strip, it’s a husk of the city I moved to in 1999.