Behind the daily barrage of accusations and attack ads in the latest ballot campaign to bring casinos to Ohio are two notoriously aggressive tacticians. Voters in the Nov. 3 election are told they should vote against "Las Vegas-style casinos" coming to Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati and Toledo. Proponents say there is "no limit to the lies" being peddled by their opponents and urge a yes vote.
The escalating tactics were decried last week by a Columbus city councilman after the anti-casino TruthPAC posted an ad on its Website picturing a police officer wielding a billy club over the head of a clergyman. The posting, quickly removed, stemmed from an influential church leader's accusation that the Fraternal Order of Police had "been bought" to support the ballot question; the FOP angrily denied it. Both groups are being funded primarily by casino developers taking opposing positions on the proposed business arrangement.
The media strategist for the pro-casino Ohio Jobs & Growth Committee, funded by Penn National and Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert, is Rex Elsass. Elsass, 47, is an admirer of legendary GOP tactician Lee Atwater, and one of the "Nasty Boys" of the 1994 U.S. Senate primary that was marred by the unauthorized sharing of a coveted Republican donor list. Elsass also conceived the infamous 2000 ads against Ohio Supreme Court Justice Alice Robie Resnick, which earned Ohio a reputation for some of the harshest campaigning in the nation. In them, Lady Justice peeked beneath her blindfold at piles of campaign cash Resnick was said to be trading for her decisions. Both the contributions behind and the content of the ads were found to be illegal by the Ohio Elections Commission.
"The advertisement was so scurrilous that I don't know if I'd ever seen as many members of the commission upset before," said Phil Richter, the commission's executive director.
On the anti-casino side is Roger Stone, 57, who worked with Atwater before his death and ran Ronald Reagan's Ohio campaign in 1984. Stone has been an adviser to the campaign's primary backer, casino developer and MTR Gaming Inc. chairman Jeffrey Jacobs, on and off since 1982. One of Stone's first forays into campaigning was as a volunteer at CREEP, the Committee to Re-Elect the President, whose misdeeds were at the center of the Watergate scandal. Stone posed as a young socialist, donated to Nixon's opponent and leaked word of the donation to the press. He bears a tattoo on his back of Nixon, whom he said he admires for his "relentlessness and resilience."
The two campaigns are fighting most forcefully this year over whether the casinos would add jobs in a state where unemployment has topped 10 percent, among the worst in the nation. Early voting has begun, and the election culminates on Nov. 3.
Jobs & Growth cites a study showing 34,000 jobs would be created by bringing casinos to the four cities. The anti-casino TruthPAC says the number would be far less than that. The University of Cincinnati economist who oversaw the economic analysis said one campaign is citing total jobs, the other is distinguishing between temporary and permanent jobs.
Anti-gambling advocate David Zanotti, president of the conservative public policy group Ohio Roundtable, called both Elsass and Stone "bad characters who behave badly for pay." But Elsass rejects the notion that this is some sort of clash of tactical titans. He said his firm, Strategy Group for Media, is running a positive, upbeat campaign.
"There's nothing about Roger Stone that I either emulate, admire, or am like," Elsass said.
Elsass writes off the "Nasty Boys" episode as a youthful learning experience and notes that he was never accused of any wrongdoing. In the Resnick campaign, he said, he was simply the messenger.
"Everything that we did was approved by our clients and produced with their approval with the goal of professionalism and creative excellence," he said. "We produced the ads with the facts we were given."
Democratic strategist Gerald Austin said the constant barrage is classic Stone and intended to confuse voters. Confused voters generally vote no.
"One of Roger Stone's rules to live by is 'Hit from every angle, open multiple fronts on your enemy,"' Austin said. "'He must be confused, and feel besieged, on every side."'
Stone makes no apologies for his track record. He said he has worked for seven gambling issues and lost only one. He has been a magnet for drama from the outset of his career during Watergate. In 2000, for example, Stone formed a nonprofit called the New York Institute for Law & Society that underwrote a nasty ad campaign against an Indian gaming issue in New York. According to documents of the case, casino owner Donald Trump - who opposed the Indian casino - was the only major donor to the nonprofit. David Grandeau, who headed the state lobbying commission at the time, said Stone never registered as a lobbyist on the issue as he should have and Trump paid $250,000 to settle the case. Stone said he still disagrees that he violated any lobbying law. More recently, a law enforcement tip from Stone is said to have been key to bringing down then-New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer in a prostitution scandal.