LAS VEGAS, Nevada — Even before landing, passengers in the
window seats can see the neon lights of the casinos on the strip.
As soon as you exit your plane and step into McCarran International
Airport, the business of the place confronts you: Rows of slot
machines waiting to accept the visitor’s contribution to the local
economy. “Double Gold,” “Triple Red White & Blue,” and “Triple
Diamond Deluxe” — the bright lights, garish colors and clamorous
sounds of the machines invite you to take a chance and, what the
heck, why not? “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” as the
slogan says, and what happens here day after day is tourists losing
money that stays in Vegas.
You go home. Your money stays here. If tourists were as
lucky as they hoped, Las Vegas would go broke within 72 hours and
all the tourists would go home rich. What actually happens, of
course, is that the tourists lose far more than they win and yet
they keep coming back year after year, losing more in the slot
machines and poker pits, at the blackjack tables and roulette
wheels — even at the airport, where they can bet a buck and maybe
win a million (but much more likely lose again) before they board
the flight back home. And tonight at the Sands Expo and Convention
Center on the Strip, somebody’s going to lose a presidential
debate.
Like every other luckless loser who leaves Las Vegas and
tells folks back home he broke even, the losers of tonight’s
Republican debate (8 p.m. ET on CNN) will pretend they didn’t
really lose. As soon as the debate ends and moderator Anderson
Cooper says good night, campaign proxies for all the candidates
will descend on the “spin room” next to the media filing center,
where they’ll assure clusters of reporters that their candidate —
no matter how hapless — has just scored a huge triumph. At least
one or two of the campaigns will have some legitimate claim to
victory, but some will be in a position analogous to the unlucky
gambler who had to pawn his watch to obtain cab fare back to the
airport, and hopes his wife doesn’t notice the missing watch when
he finally gets home.
Whatever the spinners may say, however, odds are that the
big winner tonight will be former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney,
who comes into this high-stakes game with a $14
million bankroll of campaign cash and the political equivalent
of a Vegas casino’s house advantage. According to the “It’s His
Turn” principle of GOP presidential campaigns, Romney’s the guy who
is supposed to emerge the big winner when the chips are cashed in
next August at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, so he
can play it safe and hedge his bets.
By contrast, the other big money player in tonight’s
debate arrives in Vegas riding a six-week losing streak. Texas Gov.
Rick Perry jumped into the GOP field in mid-August and quickly
raised $17
million. But Perry hasn’t won a debate yet and his Sept.
22 disaster in Orlando, followed immediately by his stunning
defeat in the Florida Republican straw poll, has covered his
once-promising campaign with a shadow of doom. Having once led the
Republican race — his standing in the influential
Real Clear Politics average of national polls peaked at 31.8
percent on Sept. 13 — Perry numbers have cratered. A
survey released by Rasmussen Reports on Thursday showed the
former front-runner now in single digits, in fourth place behind
Newt Gingrich, and the same collapse of Perry’s support is apparent
in polls for early primary and caucus states. The most recent
numbers from
Iowa show Perry in fifth place there, he’s actually in sixth
place in
New Hampshire and even in South Carolina — the original
linchpin of Perry’s strategy — he has dropped into third place
according to the
latest poll.
Perry’s lost support has evidently gone into the stack of
chips piling up quickly in front of Atlanta businessman Herman
Cain. Since his impressive
debut in a May 5 debate in South Carolina, Cain has had his ups
and downs. He finished a disappointing fifth in the Aug. 13 Iowa
GOP straw poll and most pundits seemed to count him out until, with
shocking suddenness, he zoomed into contender status with his
upset victory in the Florida straw poll, where he won more
votes than Perry and Romney combined. Cain arrives in Las Vegas
fresh off a Sunday appearance on Meet the Press, where he
survived an intense interrogation by NBC’s David Gregory. Cain is
now virtually tied with Romney in the
RCP average, and actually leads Romney in the latest polls from
Iowa and South Carolina.
Despite his astonishing month-long surge, however, Cain
faces numerous obstacles as he tries to turn his momentum into a
genuine threat to Romney. Cain’s campaign has gone through numerous
staff changes and lacks organizational strength in early primary
states. The candidate hasn’t visited Iowa in two months and the
Cain campaign’s second-quarter
fundraising — although impressive for an underdog who entered
the race with little of what pollsters call “name ID” — was a
fraction of what Romney and Perry reported. Nevertheless, based on
reports that contributions to Cain surged to $1 million a week
during the first two weeks of October, one Republican strategist
told me this weekend that if that pace continues until the end of
the year, Cain could raise “Romney-esque
money,” and have $10 million cash on hand when the Jan. 3 Iowa
caucuses roll around.
To make that happen, however, Cain must first convince
voters (and potential donors) that he really is “in it to win it,”
as he has insisted from the outset of his against-the-odds
campaign. Cain will likely be the target of multiple attacks from
his Republican rivals here tonight, not merely from Romney and
Perry, but also from other candidates eclipsed by Cain’s sudden
ascent to political rock-star status. Former House Speaker Newt
Gingrich is arguably the best debater in the GOP pack, and has seen
his own poll numbers rise in recent weeks. Minnesota Rep. Michele
Bachmann is seeking to re-start her campaign, which has floundered
since she won the Iowa straw poll two months ago. Former
Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum has so far been unable to turn his
strong debate performances into strong national poll numbers, but
can be expected to take his shots at Cain. Texas Rep. Ron Paul
remains the center of his own libertarian orbit, and has nothing to
lose by taking on Cain.
“Go down gambling,” the jazz-rock band Blood, Sweat &
Tears sang some forty years ago. “Sing it when you’re running low.
Go down gambling — you may never have to go.” Here in Vegas, which
turns would-be winners into losers every day, the candidates in
tonight’s debate must weigh their odds and take their chances. With
less than three months remaining before the Iowa caucuses, they may
finally be ready to yell, “All in,” and put everything on the
line.
