Why did Sheldon Adelson give five million to Gingrich's PAC? Connie Bruck has a theory:
[Adelson] knows what it is to be counted out and then make a triumphant comeback; after the financial storm of 2008, Adelson’s company, Las Vegas Sands, nearly went bankrupt—but Adelson put $475 million of his family’s money into it, and has since reaped enormous profits from his casinos in Macao. And Gingrich’s long odds make the upside, for Adelson, even greater. He can surely savor the sweetness of that upside—being the single person to whom both the prime minister of Israel and the President of the United States owe everything.
But he's distancing himself a little now. A reader suggests why:
How can Adelson be intimidated? That's easy. His entire empire rests on gambling, and gambling is entirely dependent on licenses, which are awarded under circumstances that afford the state enormous discretion. It would take little to bring Adelson's empire tumbling (as indeed occurred in the fourth quarter of 2008, when his net worth plummeted some $24 billion in just a few weeks of market jitters). The GOP feeds off Adelson, but they also have plenty of kompromat on him. It wouldn’t take much to raise questions about his gambling interests in Nevada and elsewhere, to rattle his co-investors, and send them scrambling. Adelson's decision to fund Gingrich in his anti-Romney vendetta is still hard to understand. It shows Adelson taking some serious risks, and it’s hard to see where this gets him and his business interests in the long run.
Maybe just believes in Newt. But if Newt wins because of him, the two-state solution in Israel is dead.
The Dish 