Obama Or Clinton - Which One Is More Lame?

Both of them are saying dumb things. In today's edition, Hillary is the lame one:

LAS VEGAS -- Barack Obama has warned about the dangers of gambling -- that it carries a "moral and social cost" that could "devastate" poor communities. As a state senator in Illinois, he at times opposed plans to expand gambling, worrying that it could be especially harmful to low-income people.

Today, those views are posing a problem for Obama in the gambling mecca of Nevada, which holds its presidential nominating caucuses Saturday. While his top rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, also talks often about aiding low-income Americans, she has embraced the gambling industry and its executives, and her campaign has used Obama's past statements in an effort to turn casino workers and other Nevada voters against him.

...The differences could also help shape the outcome of the primary election in California, where the Feb. 5 ballot will carry four high-profile initiatives that could either rescind or allow an expansion of slot machines at Indian casinos. Californians who turn out to vote on those initiatives may also be motivated by a candidate's position on gambling when they cast ballots in the presidential contest.

"There's a fundamental question here," said the Rev. Tom Grey, executive director of the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling. "Until this point, Obama's statements seemed to suggest that he did not buy into the industry arguments that this is a product like golf or Starbucks that should just go on Main Street. And Hillary, by attacking him, seems to have come down clearly on the side of the industry that this is economic development."

Although critical of Clinton's stance, Grey and others who want to limit the gambling industry are now watching Obama with a wary eye. Obama is courting union workers at casinos and has calibrated his criticisms to declare Nevada a "model" for properly regulated casino gambling.

...In 2001, the Clinton memo states, Obama described himself as "generally skeptical" of gambling as an economic development tool and likened the expansion of slot machines to the state lottery, in which, he said, "you'll have a whole bunch of people who can't afford gambling their money away, yet they're going to do it."

As part of its efforts to publicize those statements, the Clinton campaign has secured the help of top industry players -- several of whom participated in a campaign-sponsored conference call with the media last week designed to chastise Obama.

Former Las Vegas Mayor Jan Jones, now a senior executive at Harrah's Entertainment, and Philip Satre, a former Harrah's executive and top industry spokesman, argued on the conference call that gambling had brought jobs and much-needed tax revenue to many communities, including economically challenged places in Obama's home state, such as Joliet, Ill., home to a casino.

They disputed the argument that gambling causes social problems and that those problems disproportionately affect lower-income people.

"People are not gambling away their mortgages," Jones said in an interview later, adding that she planned to raise campaign money for Clinton.

...In a brief interview Thursday with The Times, Clinton described the gambling industry as an "economic development tool" and said that "for many places in the country, it seems to be an important part of what they are trying to do to revive and maintain an economic base."

Clinton likened the potential social costs of gambling to the costs of other industries that pollute or leave toxic dumps, saying that the impact "depends on how well-regulated it is."

"Any human activity has social costs, really," she said, adding later: "Life is filled with trade-offs, and you have to do the best you can to balance the pluses and the minuses."

...Obama, an avid poker player, developed a reputation in Illinois as a critic of gambling. He voted against a 1999 measure to extend riverboat gambling to include boats stationed at dockside.

But Obama was not dogmatic. In submitting campaign questionnaires in 1998 and 2002 for the anti-gambling group Illinois Churches in Action, he left himself room to back the industry, answering "undecided" on whether he favored adding riverboat and land-based casinos. On a 2002 questionnaire bearing his signature, the words "not sure" were penciled in as answers to questions about several forms of expansion, such as moving casinos from rivers to land and raising the gambling age to 21.

...In the comments cited by the campaign, Obama cast the industry's effect on Nevada in a positive light. For example, he told the Associated Press last month that gambling could be a "successful economic model" as long as it was "properly regulated."

That quote about "people are not gambling away their mortgages" made me laugh and laugh! Non-gamblers can't quite appreciate how people end up gambling away their homes, but I assure you, IT HAPPENS ALL THE TIME (it nearly happened to me in 1998).

Clinton is right that "that gambling could be a 'successful economic model' as long as it was 'properly regulated,'" but no American casino is being properly regulated now, and won't ever be, because the casinos will resist proper regulation tooth-and-nail.

The only really-effective regulations I ever saw, just small technicalities really, but devastatingly effective, were what I noticed on my Australian visit last year, limiting access to credit. As a direct result, the casino was rather lifeless on a Tuesday evening. Las Vegas casinos would rather commit mass suicide than submit to them.

First, in order to access your credit card via an ATM, you have to leave the gambling floor. No ATMs in the casino proper. That discourages impulsive decisions to get more money. Second, it is illegal to access a credit-card-based cheque-cashing service, like Americans can easily do, due to a prudent Queensland law designed in order to limit problem gambling. There was one last route I didn't try: using an internal paper credit card, so I didn't exhaust all possibilities to obtain credit, but I was sufficiently discouraged that I did not attempt gambling that night. THAT is "proper regulation!" Will regulations like these ever be adopted here?

HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!