The Dole/Freedom's Watch China Connection

October 6, 2008

GREENSBORO, NC- Freedom’s Watch, a shady third-party group funded and founded by Sheldon Adelson, a billionaire casino mogul who proudly proclaims himself as the largest investor in China, has come swooping into North Carolina, trying to rescue Elizabeth Dole’s sinking Senate re-election campaign. Freedom’s Watch has sponsored several robocalls, a mail piece and now a television ad on behalf of Elizabeth Dole.

“While Elizabeth Dole surely welcomes this group’s intervention on behalf of her flailing campaign, North Carolinians would be distressed to know that Sheldon Adelson makes his billions off of investments in China, a country that benefits greatly from trade deals while workers here pay the price,” Hagan Campaign Communications Director Colleen Flanagan said. “Adelson directly lobbied members of Congress, including disgraced Representative Tom Delay, on behalf of Chinese politicians and opened one of the largest casinos in the world in Macao. With those billions he’s funded Freedom’s Watch, whose staff is largely made up of former Bush White House staffers.”

Sheldon Adelson, owner of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, which owns the Venetian and Palazzo hotels, is among the richest men in America, worth an estimated $15 billion dollars. While he’s run amok of American gambling regulations – he was fined $1 million for rigging contests and violating other Nevada gaming regulations – and the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Adelson bragged that his Sands Corporation was “the largest investor of any kind in the history of China.” Already opened in Macao are two Sands Corporation hotels, and Adelson has planned an 13 more, spending between $7-$9 billion in the Chinese economy to build the resorts.

According to analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, the United States lost 2,166,000 jobs to China from 1997 to 2006, with the majority coming after China’s 2001 entry into the World Trade Organization. In North Carolina, 77,200 jobs have been lost due to America’s growing trade deficit with China. North Carolina has lost 2% of its total state employment due to the United States’ trade deficit with China, the second highest of any state in the nation. Elizabeth Dole has supported opening China to American trade and supported giving China membership in the World Trade Organization during her presidential campaign in 1999. Dole said her approach would benefit U.S. manufacturing interests and farmers by vastly expanding export markets

“Not only is Elizabeth Dole allowing this shady third party group do her dirty work, but it was paid for with money from a billionaire who made his fortune investing in the Chinese economy, helping their workers and their quality of life, at the cost of ours ,” Flanagan said. “As the chair of the NRSC two years ago, Dole accepted nearly $40,000 on behalf of the committee from Adelson and his family, to help run ads against Democratic candidates. Now she’s accepting his help to run nasty ads against Kay here. Birds of a feather really do flock together – Elizabeth Dole and Sheldon Adelson both condone policies and practices that cost Americans their jobs and their quality of life. It’s no wonder she’d accept his help in her struggle to keep her seat.”

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