Mr. Meisner just wanted to save his neighborhood. A resident of Mount Washington in Baltimore, he joined the "anti" forces in 2002 when he worried that slots were coming to Pimlico, just across the road from his house. The menace he saw in Mount Washington would be poised to descend on neighborhoods across the state, he thought.
"I'm a sucker. I think you have to give something back. You're called to serve in this life," he said.
Answering this call, he said, puts him in opposition to Governor O'Malley, whom he worked hard to elect. He recognizes the governor's difficult political position, but he offers no quarter.
"He may be willing to sacrifice his core beliefs. I'm not," he said.
Mr. Meisner has become what he calls a "slots geek." He has drilled deeply into the claims of the advocates and finds most of them misleading or simply wrong. Those who think slots will rescue a state's budget should look at New Jersey, which, notwithstanding the gambling palaces of Atlantic City, has a $32 billion deficit.
He argues also that changing the state constitution to permit gambling transforms government into a predator. The only way for government to win with gambling is for the citizens to lose, he says.
A "yes" vote on slots would be like the proposed gas tax moratorium: The reputed benefits are overstated, the potential damage permanent. Once slots are enshrined in the constitution - and the budget - Maryland itself will become the most intractable of gambling addicts.
C. Fraser Smith is senior news analyst for WYPR-FM. His column appears Sundays in The Sun. His e-mail is fsmith@wypr.org.
