Casino friend accuses objectors of playing media game well

6/21/07 Middleboro Gazette

Casino friend accuses objectors of playing media game well.

To the Editor:

As a casino advocate and webmaster for Casino-Friend.com, I'd like to complement the anti-casino forces at the website CasinoFacts.org.

They have followed the playbook laid out by anti-casino public relations experts virtually to the letter.

They began by selecting a website name which says that they are the Internet source for "facts" about casinos.

Then they festooned the town with their "Get the Facts" sign with their website address on them, placing them on private and public property and at every high traffic location.

At the same time they organized a core group of about twenty who made sure they were at public events with anti-casino signs. This guaranteed them coverage in the print media and on television.

They managed to dominate the media, knowing that the media tends to cover those making the most "noise" and being the most colorful. They were by far the most visible and outspoken. In one newspaper article there was one paragraph about our website and eight about theirs.

They persist in treating Casino-Friend.com as if it doesn't exist, with no references to us on their website. According to Christine Wallgren of Boston Globe South, they complained about her giving too much coverage to Casino-Friend even though two of her articles reference them frequently and don't mention us.

The CasinoFacts group knows that by appearing to express the views of the majority, without equal media reporting of our side, some people will assume they speak for most of the town. We don't think they do. In fact, at the last big meeting at the high school, when they applauded and shouted, I was in the front row and turned about noting that I could see only about a quarter of the people clapping their hands.

Now they have moved to phase two. They claim to want the town to conduct some kind of binding vote on whether or not residents want a casino. They frequently use the term "democracy", a conceept chosen because they know it is difficult to argue against.

The fact that a casino would change Middloboro forever doesn't alter the fact that it is still a business wanting to move to town. I don't know of another example of a business needing to have voter "permission" to set up shop here.

Obviously nobody knows what the outcome of such a vote would be, let alone wether a legally binding vote can even be held. I suspect that the anti-casino group is not highly confident they would win a vote.

However, this doesn't matter, because they do know that any delaying tactic works in their favor.

It's part of their playbook. And if we let them they will continue to play it well.