Having made his decision, Jim Murren went to the window recently and placed his bet.
While other casino titans have been content to maintain a lower profile of late in the presidential race, MGM Resorts International Chairman and CEO Murren stepped into the spotlight with a ringing endorsement of the Democratic Party nominee published in USA Today. The piece in the national newspaper’s Aug. 15 edition ran under the headlines, “Don’t Bet Against Our Economy” and “Here’s why this Republican CEO is publicly endorsing Hillary Clinton.”
Some have taken note of Murren’s self-described status as a “lifelong registered Republican” given his long and prosperous alliance with U.S. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, and the casino executive himself admits he’s “crossed the aisle” a few times over the years. And, of course, the Murren isn’t exactly the first high-profile Republican to fail to appreciate the charm of GOP nominee Donald Trump.
But it wasn’t Murren’s voter registration status that made his endorsement so intriguing and, frankly, refreshing. It was the content of his commentary. While it would have been easier — and probably a lot more fun — for Murren if he’d merely written off Trump as unstable, he offered his perspective as a business executive tasked to grow the company in a competitive market. While the stuff coming out of Trump’s mouth has found willing ears with a percentage of a frustrated voting public, the rhetoric doesn’t make sense in a global economy — especially for a tourism-driven metropolitan area that increasingly relies on international travelers. Although Trump has tried to walk back from the edge of the economic Twilight Zone in recent days, his offensive bluster has been enough to give many in the business class pause.
“One candidate in the race has pledged to support trade agreements that will boost our economy and benefit American workers, while ensuring that our environment is protected,” Murren writes. “The other candidate seems determined to needlessly antagonize our allies and trading partners by pledging to tear up NAFTA and other hard-won trade deals.
“One candidate works to create stability and certainty, qualities the market loves and rewards. The other operates erratically and unpredictably — qualities the market abhors and punishes.”
That’s not a love letter to a Democrat. That’s a guy operating in a business climate that relies on building relationships — not tearing them to pieces and using them as political fodder.
Without resorting to alarmist rhetoric, scapegoating or threats of doom, Murren notes foreign visitors comprise an important 16 percent of the 42 million visitors who entered the Las Vegas market last year. It’s an important number now, and it has the potential to grow. Many of those tourists are visiting from countries regularly vilified by Trump.
And there’s the fact that at MGM, and elsewhere in the real America, the workforce is ethnically diverse — 45 percent of employees at the gaming company are minorities and almost half are women. All the name-calling that has been such a large part of Trump’s campaign road show doesn’t fly far.
Murren’s endorsement is full-throated, to be sure, and at moments is so laudatory of Clinton’s experience and strengths that it sounds very much like a campaign advertisement. But his point ought to reverberate through the gaming industry.
Of course, Murren’s endorsement isn’t the only sign of interest in the presidential campaign emanating from gaming industry elites.
Casino executive Steve Wynn touted Trump’s candidacy early and appeared at a victory event following Nevada’s GOP primary. He told an interviewer recently he was holding off on an endorsement for the time being.
Las Vegas Sands Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson is considered the man with the most chips on the table. He previously expressed a willingness to spend $100 million to see a Republican in the White House, but hasn’t had much to say about Trump’s divisive rhetoric.
It’s interesting to note that Adelson, according to the latest Federal Election Commission filing, has yet to cut Trump a big check. But his family-owned Las Vegas Review-Journal, my former employer, recently hired right-wing firebrand Wayne Allyn Root as a news columnist. Root is an unabashed Trump man and has introduced the candidate at public events.
As the head of a company that employs more than 60,000 workers, Jim Murren has also weighed in. And in the real world, he makes plenty of sense.
