Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons Blasts President Obama

Later this month, President Barack Obama will travel to Los Vegas for a fund raiser for Senator Harry Reid, the Senate Majority leader. This has Nevada's Republican governor Jim Gibbons miffed, as Obama has refused to meet with him.

Governor Jim Gibbons would like President Obama to meet with him and some Nevada business leaders to discuss Nevada's financial woes. The problem is, Barack Obama may have helped to cause Nevada's financial woes.

According to KTNV News in Los Vegas, "Earlier this year, the President told an audience in Elkhart, Indiana, 'You can't get corporate jets. You can't go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayer's dime.' That quote was seen by many as an insult to Las Vegas and as a message to companies across the Nation to stay away from Las Vegas for corporate meetings and conventions."

President Obama likely meant the remarks in Elkhart as liberal class warfare rhetoric, but it has had an unhappy effect, some suggest.

More than 400 conventions and business meetings scheduled to take place in Las Vegas recently have canceled, says the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. This means 111,800 guests in Las Vegas and over 250,000 "room-nights" are canceled, costing the Las Vegas economy over $100 million. This does not include gaming revenue.

How much of that decline is the result of President Obama's remarks and how much is the result of the general economic malaise is open to question. Governor Jim Gibbons is sure that he knows the answer.

"'I am disappointed at the hypocrisy shown by this Administration,' Gibbons said, 'President Obama is coming to Las Vegas later this month for a political fundraiser, but he will not help the struggling families in Las Vegas and Nevada who are out of work because of his reckless comments.'"

President Obama was likely not deliberately trying to wreck Nevada;s tourist industry. It was convenient for him to attack corporate fat cats flying to Vegas on private jets to enjoy the various pleasures that city has to offer. But if the fat cats are staying home, then a lot of people who are not corporate fat cats--waitresses, dealers, entertainers, among others--tend to suffer, The corporate fat cats re not having conventions and spending money in Los Vegas. What stays away from Los Vegas doesn't happen in Los Vegas. That's the unintended effect of class warfare.

There may be some method to Governor Jim Gibbons' retort. A recent poll conducted by the Mason Dixon organization for the Los Vegas Review-Journal suggests that Jim Gibbons' reelection prospects are poor. Over half of Nevadan voters have already decided to vote for someone else. If Jim Gibbons can persuade Nevadans that the state's economic woes are Obama's fault, those poll numbers might turn around.

Senator Harry Reid, for whom Obama is traveling to Nevada to raise money, is also faring poorly in the polls. This may indicate a general anti incumbent sentiment in Nevada as a result of the economic downturn. How that will play out in the next election is, right now, difficult to guess.

Sources: President Obama refuses to meet with Governor Gibbons about tourism comments, KTNV News, May 18th, 2009 '

IMPOSSIBLE SITUATION': Gibbons fares poorly in poll, Molly Ball, Los Vegas Review-Journal, May 18th, 2009