Okay, there’s a lot of pandering to special interest voting blocs in the presidential race, and I appreciate that. But there are also voting blocs that don’t get pandered to enough, and there are some seriously potent opportunities for an enterprising candidate to claim a few percentage points by doing so.
When the GOP really messes something up because of its own pandering, a wise candidate should jump all over it. And the GOP did just that when, just before the last Congressional session ended, it effectively outlawed internet gambling. The move was largely to appease an uneasy Evangelical base that saw most of its pet issues – abortion, gay marriage, etc. – going nowhere. Since casinos tend to be heavy contributors of the GOP (Just ask Jack Abramoff) and they didn’t like the competition, the GOP figured that they could kill two birds with one stone by outlawing the transfer of money for gambling through US banks. Mumble something about funding terrorism and the children. It was an afterthought, a coda of legislation. Blatant pandering to the base.
Except it backfired. Apparently there are large numbers of God-fearing, church-going, registered voters who like to spend their Thursday nights playing low-stakes Texas Hold’em on line instead of watching My Name Is Earl re-runs. These people were pissed that their harmless little hobby had been so unfairly demonized. You see, it’s all very well and good for the politicians to prove their impeccable moral credentials (when they aren’t offering BJs to undercover cops for the low, low price of $20) by such anti-vice stances, but when a very large chunk of the electorate feels unfairly victimized for what they do in the privacy of their own homes, well, poll numbers go down.
It’s not like the legislation truly worked – within hours the off-shore gaming industry had found third-country banking work-arounds – but the inconvenience was annoying to the point of getting people pissed off. Plus such legislation opens the US to free trade agreement lawsuits from the Europeans, who see the move as unfair restriction of international trade. But with all the war and death and bridges and mines and stuff, no one wants to talk publicly about what is, to most people, a trivial concern.
The easiest way to pick up plenty of cheap and easy votes is to vow, publicly, to restore full access to international gambling institutions. Now it’s hard for a politician to come out both pro-gaming and anti-corruption, but the fact is that the vast, vast majority of internet gamblers are small-time card sharks who win or lose no more than a few hundred dollars a year. There are exceptions, of course, but the fact remains that internet gambling is a fairly harmless diversion enjoyed by many would-be high rollers.
The whole vice "industry", from liquor and porn to gaming, have always been the whipping boy of the Right (and occasionally the Left) but the fact is that these industries employ millions of people, are enjoyed by millions of people, and provide billions in valuable tax revenue to state, local, and the Federal government every year. They could not exist except in a free and open society, and while some might find them repugnant, morally speaking, they are an exercise in our Constitutionally-mandated freedoms.
While I doubt we’ll hear Hillary stand up and confess a deep personal love of chick porn or see Obama expressing his appreciation for a well-played hand of poker, a Democratic candidate who spoke openly about these things – expressing their support for every American’s right to spend their leisure time howsoever they saw fit, would immediately lead to a general bump in the polls.
If I was a bettin’ man, I’d be all in on this one.