Anti-Slots Swann Hires Slots Lobbyist as Chief of Staff

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review has checked out the background of Pennsylvania Gubernatorial candidate Lynn Swann's new campaign chief of staff and found some irony.

"Walter Breakell, of New York, was named campaign chief of staff on Friday and will oversee operations in Swann's Pittsburgh office beginning Monday", according to the paper. Breakell was formerly head of the New York office of DCI Group, a national lobbying concern. One of DCI's big clients is GTECH. From the Tribune-Review:

GTECH [is] a leading gambling technology and services company based in Rhode Island. GTECH is one of the companies licensed by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board to manufacture slots machines for Pennsylvania's fledgling casino industry. Last year, the state Revenue Department selected GTECH to operate the central computer system to monitor activity at each of up to 61,000 slots machines in the state. It eventually would be the largest such system in the world. GTECH paid DCI $400,000 between 2001 and 2005, according to a lobbyist database maintained by the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based nonprofit organization that tracks politically related spending. DCI's total lobbying income during that period was $11.5 million.

Slots casinos are to Swann's campaign what immigration is to Santorum -- an issue a desperate losing campaign hopes gets it noticed. The Swann team is apparently a little sensitive that the Tribune-Review picked up on the fact that Swann just hired someone who's last firm helped bring gambling to Pennsylvania:

Swann campaign spokeswoman Melissa Walters said "That's ridiculous. The only person that brought gambling to Pennsylvania is Ed Rendell."

Well, okay then.