Sheldon Adelson didn’t amass a $20 billion fortune by making dumb investments–or, at least, by continuing to make dumb investments. The Timesreports that Adelson, who has known and liked Romney for years, is prepared to contribute substantial money to the Romney cause, and recognizes that his other friend, Newt, may not make it.
Adelson clearly loves both Romney and Gingrich’s fealty to the policies of Israel’s hard right government. But it’s also important to note that Adelson hates unions about as much as Ahab hated that white whale (except Adelson is sort of the white whale, too…never mind). Over 90% of the rooms on the Las Vegas Strip are unionized. The union, Culinary 226, is, arguably, the most powerful local union in the country, beloved by its membership, primarily, of housekeepers, and tolerated by the large game companies that dominate the strip.
Except for Adelson, who has rabidly fought the union’s effort to organize his properties. Oddly, the New York Times profile of Adelson didn’t mention this important part of his business career the other day (although a New Yorker Profile from a couple of years ago did). I mention all of this because both Gingrich and Romney share Adelson’s anti-union animus as they do his program for the Middle East. It’s no accident that Romney managed to trash the NLRB in his victory speech last night, and has adopted the old right insult, “union stooges”, to describe the members of the board.
You can sure that Adelson was listening–and smiling.
