Originally posted at Fireside 14 and Daily Kos.
BETTING ON THE COME
Tough talk by the current crop of Republicans about the evils of gambling didn’t begin in response to the emergence of Indian casinos, or even with the arrival of internet gambling. The more principled of the social conservatives in the party had been profoundly opposed to gambling all along. When Pat Buchanan won the Republican primary in Louisiana in 1996, he did so while running on an anti-gambling platform. Later that year, a leading congressional opponent of gambling, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), saw his National Gambling Impact Study Commission Act signed into law. Indeed, it was the release of that commission’s report in June 1999 that proved to be the tipping point in the relations between the Republican Party and the gaming industry. Interestingly enough, however, the anti-gambling legislation that was proposed in the wake of that report didn’t make things worse between the two of them; it ended up bringing them closer together.
