Will Obama apologize to Las Vegans?

Laura Myers/Las Vegas Review-Journal

Obama’s Southern Nevada swing Thursday and Friday is aimed partly at boosting the re-election chances of Sen. Harry Reid. The Democratic Senate majority leader’s political future is in jeopardy after leading the stalled White House effort in Congress to pass health care reform.

The president also may make a personal apology to LasVegans for using the city as a punching bag in comments he made this month and a year ago about how Americans and corporations looking to tighten their belts should avoid dumping dollars into the city’s visitor-dependent economy.

“I do believe you will see an apology come out of his lips,” said Mark Peplowski, a political science professor at the College of Southern Nevada. “He’ll say twice I said something about Las Vegas and twice I got sent to the principal’s office. But then he’ll probably say something more serious to apologize.”

…

Obama is scheduled to arrive Thursday evening and attend a closed fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee at the Southern Highlands home of George Maloof, owner of the Palms hotel and casino where Paris Hilton and other young stars and Hollywood elite like to party. Southern Highlands is a wealthy gated community in the south valley, just west of Interstate 15.

He's good at apologizing and bowing. He owes Las Vegans the same.

About 45 people are invited to the fundraiser, with donors asked to pay up to a maximum of $30,000 a head, with the goal of raising at least $1 million for the DNC, said one person familiar with the fundraising effort and speaking on condition of anonymity because nothing had been announced.

…