The No Casinos in Sedgwick County group, led by attorney Mark Kahrs, waged a smart, well-organized, effective campaignthat was a model of community grassroots organizing. It’s also interesting to note that the gaming measures weren’t defeated by social conservatives alone. The broad "no" coalition included liberal churches, too, as well as secular business interests and average citizens.
Moreover, the prevailing wisdom was that a large turnout would help the "yes" vote, but it didn’t happen. That seems to indicate that a lot of Wichitans who initially leaned toward a "yes" vote (70 percent of voters, according to an April poll) were swayed to change their position by the "no" campaign.
The "yes" campaign, by contrast, seemed to be going through the motions. No one was out front, not even Phil Ruffin, who spent more than $800,000 on this lackluster campaign. You could say he didn’t get his money’s worth.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
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44 Comments
A few folks I talked to supported gaming but did not support the pitiful TWO PERCENT of taxes to be remitted to the community.
Maybe Ruffin should have sweetened the deal instead of playing us for suckers.
Of course, that’s what gamblers are, so who can blame him.
Anyway, for the record, I voted NO – YES. But I’m glad they both went down in flames.
The Greyhound Park shouldn’t be able to subsidize its losing dog track with one-armed bandits.
The pro-gaming campaign was less than “lackluster.” It was a cluster**** from day one. They couldn’t settle on a management team, people not directly responsible for the campaign meddled in things they don’t understand, there was no targeting, no strategy, no consistent message, no attempt to build coalitions beyond gaming interests.
It was their campaign to lose, and they lost it.
Very true Tom. To reprint my prediction – which was close but missed the trach:
***********************************
July 13, 2007
Why the Casino vote will fail:
This does not represent so much my preferences but rather my predictions on the up-coming casino vote. I think it will be defeated; there are several reasons for this.
1. The ‘religious right’.
This group of people, led by Mark Kahrs, is powerful beyond its numbers. The reason: THEY WILL TURN OUT AND VOTE. Let us assume, just for the sake of discussion, that this group is 10% of the public and that half of them vote. That means a 5% vote NO from that group. With overall turnout at less than 20% this gives the “NO” vote a good start.
2. The Arena effect
This one is a lot different and effects different people. Polls (KWCH and the Eagle) have shown that 2/3 of Sedgwick County residents have turned against the Arena. Many of the same people who are pushing the casino “Vote YesYesWinWin” are those who pushed the Arena “Vote Yea!” campaign. The sour feeling many people have about the cost overruns with the arena will spill over to the casino effort; a sort of “guilt by association”.
3. Uncertainty of location
This feeds off #2. Many people support a casino with particular locations in mind. There are those who are adamant that it be downtown and nowhere else. There are others who worry that a casino downtown might be a bad idea. This is exacerbated by the talk – even though denied – of selling Century II to a casino developer. Since C-II has been Wichita’s center for the performing arts and for other uses the loss of that facility concerns many people. Promises that it will not be sold or that it would be replaced if sole ring hollow; there is not much trust any more.
4. Business leaders.
Many respected business leaders such as Russ Meyers and Charles Chandler and others have come out against a downtown casino. These people command a fair amount of respect in Wichita; it will be difficult for the casino crowd to label them “Wichita-haters” or “CAVE people.” Many otherwise undecided voters will look at them and ask themselves “What have they figured out about this proposal that convinces them it is bad for Wichita?”
5. Young professionals
Another group, “We Believe in Wichita”, has come out against the casino. This group of professionals led by Jon Rolph, executive VP of Carlos O’Kelley’s, will reach out to other YOUNG professionals in Wichita. Although the casino promoters will likely attempt to label them “Wichita-haters” and “CAVE people” this attempt will fail.
6. Who is backing casinos?
So far, the only ‘pro-casino’ presence has come from the promoters themselves and a few of those who are involved in the Arena. We have not seen any significant Wichita business/community leaders come out in favor of the casino.
So, what will happen on election day? My guess is that the hard-core “NO” group (#1 above) will turn out heavily. The rest of the items above will likely split the rest of the electorate and/or just keep them home. I have met very few hard-core “YES” voters; many of us ‘tend toward YES’ but don’t feel we have a dog in this fight. So, many will simply not bother voting. Many others, swayed by the uncertainties concerning location, economic impact, etc, will vote NO. Others still will vote NO out of distrust of those politicos who are making promises.
Turn-out: Less then 20%Result: 60-40 against.
How can it be turned around?
I think the pro-casino group might be able to turn this around. The key would be to find some respected Wichitans to come out in favor of the casino. This is needed to counteract the effect of those respected leaders who have come out against it. These cannot be just politicians; they must be non-political community leaders.
I think most people can still be convinced one way or another; as noted there are few die-hards on either side. However, right now the “NO” side is putting up much more persuasion than is the “YES” side.
8/2/2007 addendumYea-Yea-Rah-Rah has been advertising heavily; I think that will increase turnout and tighten things a bit. Prediction is now casinos lose 55-45.An interesting development this morning: There is a new add pushing just the slots at the track. I think Ruffin is hedging his bets. The ad notes that we know where the track is and won’t have to worry about location. Smart move by Ruffin IMO.With the de-coupling of the question: track wins 55-45.
I could tell the ground roots base of the NO NO was a bit more effective.
One is that I got a phone call from a real person on the gambling issue asking me if I was going to vote NO NO.
All of the YES YES side were robot calls.
I got in the mail box about a dozen YES YES flyers and two NO NO Flyers.
The NO NO side appeared to be better organized and more locally supported.
I got the impression that they YES YES side was outside interests as it was all impersonal and very canned in their message.
We still have Oklahoma and Kansas City to take our money to rather than spend it in Wichita.
My take on why the yes-yes people lost is that they were out manuevered by the no’s. They expected the so called “religious right” to take the lead and based their strategy on swatting down the “Bible thumpers”. When the opposition went on the attack, not with Joe Wright and Terry Fox, but with the likes of John Rolph and Russ Meyers they were caught flat footed and had no credible response. Jack DeBoer coming out firmly against the Casinos was very important also as He seemed to be going against his own business interests. With the religious folks laying low the yes-yes people were left with corny sounding commercials with dufusses trying to tell the voters to vote yes-yes “to keep us in the game”. I also think the Sunday liquor helped. When the petition drive fell short and those that opposed it realized they were not going to be given a chance to vote on it, they became more determined than ever to defeat the casinos and the slots.
Chris, Kansas …
Yep!
Its likely the Indians will buy some land close by…use some Indian Medicine man (and donations to local politicians) to magically turn it into “tribal land” and a casino will appear.
Otherwise we still have Oklahoma City and KC to go to. We go to OKC twice a month for BrickTown and the big new RiverWind casino. They have some good shows now.
But it looks like the bowlers that may be coming back to the area will continue to have to go to KC to gamble in the evenings after their bowling.
I would urge people to look into shutting down all the development now that we see who is in charge here. Close the new Coloseum, force the city to shut down all the Water Walk area. We do NOT want such progressive development in this city. We would rather other cities had our money.
We also urge all families to home school and teach their kids Intelligent Design, and start a fund to dig up Terry Schiavo and try to resuscitate her.
Gosh! Who’d a thunk a bunch of ignorant Bible-thumping hicks could run such a well-organized campaign and turn out voters so effectively!
Parkay,
But you’re slipping. Only 56% this time, instead of 69%.
I see a wall. I see the writing on it.
Can you?
lol mrbill :)
mrbill; Tribes can not buy land and declare it Tribal Land in order to build a Casino. Even IF, they give to local politicans. Even old politican turn “ho” Bob Knight couldn’t and can’t make it happen. New Tribal land for casino use is determined at the Federal level, and compact agreements entered in with the State’s Governor.
Where are Walt Chappell and his whining that the election was a fraud? According to Walt Chappell if you are ahead with advance votes you cannot lose. The Yes votes were ahead until the machine votes were counted and then the No votes won. Therefore, with your whacked theory Walt Chappell the No’s could not have won. Help us Walt. We want a casino.
Walt, Walt help turn this around to a Yes vote. It must be fraud. The machines had to be hacked into just like you said they were in your race. Let the people know Walt that there was fraud here. All the machines were hacked into and manipulated! Do not let this opportunity to go by. Walt Chappell save this town. Get us our casino and slots at the track. Save those peoples jobs at the tracks. Give us those minimum wage jobs at the casino.
parkay – you are claiming FAR too much credit. Meyers et.al. had much more to do with the vote than you did. And the Yea!Yea!Rah!Rah! crowd did horribly.
I would have loved to have voted yes. I love to see a casino in Wichita. It is too bad that our city, county, and state leaders are so shady. They won’t tell us where it will be built, or who is going to pay for it. I am too afraid if I voted yes on this generic ballot, that one day they would raise taxes again to build it. Been screwed over too many times.
won’t be foolec – looks like my reason #2 above.
The “Yes” crowd should have used that carpet-laying dude from the Horton Carpet commercial, the guy with the ring in his nose.No worse than the beat-nick bearded guy!
Don’t Let the Door Hit You; I thought of Chappell too when I read the comments from the whinners(not winners, the losers)!
“Gosh! Who’d a thunk a bunch of ignorant Bible-thumping hicks could run such a well-organized campaign and turn out voters so effectively!
Posted by: parkay | August 08, 2007 at 03:06 PM ”
Bible-thumping?!?I thought you No-No’ers said it was about the economy?Was this a religious deal all along?
brian – that was the strange bed-fellows combination I referred to long ago. See my 1:29 post above re-posted from several weeks ago.
Sumner county will be more than happy to take your money.
If it were on the same ballot as a regular election my guess is that the result would be different but few voters that might be for the thing feel enough passion to make a trip to vote for it while those who oppose gaming have much more passion about the issue. It is much the same with things like abortion- the pro choice folks by in large do not have the passion that the anti choice folks have about this issue. The pro choice people either don’t vote or, if they do, vote on the basis of other issues that are more important to them than abortion which is why being anti choice is a politically safe choice in most places. Same with gambling.
“Its likely the Indians will buy some land close by…use some Indian Medicine man (and donations to local politicians) to magically turn it into “tribal land” and a casino will appear.
Otherwise we still have Oklahoma City and KC to go to. We go to OKC twice a month for BrickTown and the big new RiverWind casino. They have some good shows now.”
Wow… I would have liked to see Wichita get a casino too but all is not lost. Eventually it will get one. Remember that it took 20 years for Kansas to allow you to order a drink with your dinner. But all is not lost- it is still a nice city and, like you said- if you wanna gamble, Oklahoma is only a county away. And besides would you rather gamble and support poor Indian children than rich white casino owners?
I heard on the radio today that the county commish, is complating raising sales taxes to cover the lost revenue they would have got from the casino to pay for the jail expansion and the training faliticy for the aircraft companies.
Whenever the arena tax is finished, I think that is soon, then they can raise them.
I don’t think it would be a very good idea to do that before then.
Tom Paine, doesn’t the Lottery ticket sales go to jails and Prisons? Or is it just prisons? I thought that was one of the purpose of the Lottery sales.
I think the County has stuck itself between the proverbial rock and a hard place.
They’ll cheer, up until it cost them. Vis-a-vis the war. Easy to be a cheel leader if you don’t have a dog in the race, or have to pay to provide for them.I was rather neutral on the gambling issue, didn’t really care too much, figured our loss would be sumner couty’s gain. I seldom gamble.
Remember, Sedg County still gets 1%
I think if the percentage coming back into the community was a bigger share, it would have passed. As it was, all the problems associated with gambling outweighed the possible benefits, and most people realized this.
Who’s up for the Peerless Tower now. :)
Shameless plug!
True, Mary. But with a casino located in Sumner county, we will realize 0 percentage of the return and 100% of the social costs. Not a good deal.
“Who’s up for the Peerless Tower now. :)”
Will there be casino gambling in it, or at least some good fireworks nearby?
No Casino of course. ;)
Fireworks? Sure! Best view in the city. :)
Lottery sales last I knew went into some sort of econ development programs things like upkeep on the fair grounds. The county jail being a county facility is funded by county taxes the state might pay for some expense but I don’t think it is much. It would make more sense for lotto and gaming funds to go into education funds since that’s its biggest expense.
One thing I learned from this campaign, the “big lie” propaganda technique works. They “no” campaign claimed that Century II was in danger and they knew that was a lie. “Taxes will go through the roof, Crime goes up 84%.” Other places have gambling and I just don’t see that happening. There are three kinds of statistics – statistics, damn statistics and out right lies. I’m surprised the “no” campaign didn’t suggest it would cause earthquakes and volcanoes. They made every other ridiculous claim they could come up with.
“we will realize 0 percentage of the return ”
WRONG! Sedgwick County gets a 1% cut.
Otto,
Another big lie in the “NO” campaign was the “not one penny for public schools.” It wasn’t an outright lie, but the casino bill never had public school funding as one of its goals. It’s like saying “that law you passed against embezzling funds hasn’t stopped a single carjacking!!”
Otto – I kept hearing about a C-II/Library location from a SUPPORTER of the casino. I also heard their claims that their casino would magically get conventions like the bowlers back. No evidence to support that; in fact I still think the talk some time ago about C-II and the Canadians contributed to their departure.
I still think this thing was more lost by the YES campaign (sic) than it was won by the NO campaign. A quarter of the electorate switched from YES to NO. Many of them remained convinced as late as yesterday that they would breeze to victory. They seemed to think they were invinceable.
In fact, I think that contributed to the track losing; I suspect that some of the big downtown boosters voted YES-NO hoping to get a monopoly for their downtown casino. A 175-vote switch there would have put slots at the track.
I am too afraid if I voted yes on this generic ballot, that one day they would raise taxes again to build it. Been screwed over too many times.
Posted by: Won’t be fooled again
Most no voters were afraid, and tomorrow they will be afraid of something completely new (new to them anyway).
I didn’t know one of the scare stories was that the county was going to build it themselves.
Remember, Sedg County still gets 1%
Posted by: Ben
I think if the percentage coming back into the community was a bigger share, it would have passed. As it was, all the problems associated with gambling outweighed the possible benefits, and most people realized this.
Posted by: Mary Caruso
it’s good to keep your side confused.
no voters would have voted for it if the share returned was bigger.
why? because the social costs would have been higher than the cut.
by voting no the share is half and the social costs are the same.
that was a reason to vote no, right?
It’s always interesting when a christian stands up and outright lies through their teeth.
it’s also interesting how so many christians can’t or don’t regonize the lies.
Or, are just afraid to say, “that doesn’t sound like the truth.”
Dear spell checkers,I happily accept the fact that the correct spelling is… recognize.Regards,You’re a reflection on your faith.(and, your spelling ability)
It was a simple matter of corrupt preachers being rallied to use their followers as pawns.
The Churches were used as voting machines. I have it on tape, and forwarded some info to the IRS.
25 miles – as you are fully aware my main reason for NO-YES was uncertainty about the site. I oppose downtown for a number of reasons which I have clearly stated. So, as you are aware, I am not a ’strict’ NO voter.
I would have preferred unincorporated Sedgwick County; that option was NOT on the ballot as you are aware.