Poker Played Its Part

I'm sure Irag was main reason for the Republican defeats, but I'd guess the online gaming "ban" played its part, in particular for Leach. If it did, it would be good to draw attention to it wherever possible as the mainstream news organisations probably won't. Many newspapers have internet sites where public comments can be added to the main story. If you voted Democrat because your freedom to enjoy poker is under attack why not find a couple and say so there.

[feelixthegreek]

Taking credit for results is a key component of political success. We'd be crazy not to claim some influence over yesterday's election returns.

[Bilgefisher]

Lets brainstorm a bit. We need to make it heard that poker helped sway votes possibly contributing to the removal of Leach. So I ask;

What can/should we do to let others know that this poker legislation resulted in Leach being voted out?

I'll leave you with this statement by Autobet [ QUOTE ]
Tell Me What To Do With My Mouse, and Lose Your Seat in the House

[/ QUOTE ]

[Carlson411]

Should definitly try to take some type credit. Its the way America works anyway. Even if it was a small % of credit, take it and run. Just like when everybody folds to you in the Borgata b/c they suck. Take the small pot and run.

[ArtMonkRules]

I know for a fact we made a differnece... I live in Virginia, and have several buddies that like me, consider online poker our passion, passtime, and even part time job... we all voted for Webb, and before this election, I had NEVER voted democrat. In a state of 6 million people, and an election of 2.5 million votes that appears to have been decided by a mere 6000 votes (less that one half of one percent difference) consider that if Virginia is inline with the national numbers, then there are apprx. 300,000 people playing poker online in virginia. If even a tenth of those players voted, then it may have swung this entire election!

[spidey74]

If you take a look, every single one of the candidates that supported poker players ended up winning in this past election:

- Jon Tester
- Claire McCaskill
- Maria Cantwell
- Jim Webb

What's more Jim Leach lost and his race wasn't even on the radar!! True, we didn't win the Jon Kyl race, but we were able to help narrow a 29 point lead from a poll taken in January down to 9 points!

I think it is very clear, poker players do have a voice in American politics and its only been a few months since we started working together. The takewaway is clear, we need to continue working together and we need to continue getting stronger. We went from being an abandoned orphan a few months ago, to now having a decent amount of people in our corner. That list needs to continue to grow. We need to continue to enlist new politicians to fight for our cause and brainstorm new ideas to progress our fight.

Let's celebrate the victory of this battle, but let's also make sure we win the war!!

Spidey

[jackaaron]

I have no real way to determine in Ohio if poker swayed the vote. I, like many of you, have typically voted Repub. Of course, I voted Dem this time, and asked others too as well. If you pay attention to our elections, you'll notice that we are typically a Repub state, and we've had Repub Governors forever. We now have a Dem governor, and Repub Sen Dewine has been ousted by a Dem as well. Essentially, the Dems took over Ohio.

[Skipbidder]

[ QUOTE ]
What's more Jim Leach lost and his race wasn't even on the radar!!

[/ QUOTE ]

Repeatedly saying this won't make it true. The race wasn't heavily polled. It was conducted very civilly. Very little advertising money was spent. The Des Moines Register seemed to think that the race was going to be close. The Iowa City Press-Citizen in November considered it the closest race in the state, thinking it was going to be close to 50-50. The only real poll conducted there had the race 50-48 at the end of October.

[BruinEric]

People can "take credit" all they want, but no politician with any electoral sense about him/her will believe that the pro-online-gaming constituency will play a significant role in vote tallies in their future.

The way to influence politicians is for the PPA or other lobbying organizations to guide them to plentiful CASH MONEY for their campaign coffers.

Otherwise, politicians in unsafe districts won't often come out strongly in favor of legalization of online poker. Because there is more electoral and fundraising risk inherent in that position. A Republican faces lost votes and lost donations by some values-based groups focused on gambling. A Democrat faces the same from the "protect the children" and the "gambling is an addiction/disease" types.

The risk now is that a Democrat congress keeps with this effort in order to 'triangulate' and show small signs of being "in touch" with values voters and "save the children" voters. Remember -- it took a Democrat president to sign Welfare Reform for just that kind of reasoning.

[Eaglesfan1]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
What's more Jim Leach lost and his race wasn't even on the radar!!

[/ QUOTE ]

Repeatedly saying this won't make it true. The race wasn't heavily polled. It was conducted very civilly. Very little advertising money was spent. The Des Moines Register seemed to think that the race was going to be close. The Iowa City Press-Citizen in November considered it the closest race in the state, thinking it was going to be close to 50-50. The only real poll conducted there had the race 50-48 at the end of October.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thank you for adding the manditory, un-needed negativity that must find its way into every thread... which ultimately starts an argument about some non-important point, and takes the thread totally off topic.