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By TOM BELL
MaineToday Media, Inc. 02/17/2008

MaineToday Media, Inc.

Maine's exports include lobsters, semiconductors and forest products. Now add Dennis Bailey to the list.

Building on his successful record against gambling interests in Maine, the Portland-based public relations operative is now taking his anti-casino franchise national with battles against casinos on both coasts.

Last week, the Boston Herald dubbed him the "casino killer."

But some wonder whether Bailey is getting too much credit for the Maine anti-casino victories, and others complain that his tactics are too heavy-handed.

This month, two groups have hired Bailey to fight casinos in other states.

A Massachusetts coalition hired Bailey to help defeat Donald Trump, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and the state's powerful unions, all of whom are pushing a plan to build three casinos in the Bay State.

Bailey also flew out Thursday to meet with a group of residents in a small Washington state town on the Canadian border to help them launch an anti-casino campaign there.

In 2006, Bailey helped a Rhode Island anti-casino group torpedo a ballot measure that would have allowed the Narragansett tribe to build a $1 billion casino.

Every anti-casino group in the country is now using some of the information that Bailey developed during his campaigns in Maine, said Richard Young, president of Casino Free Mass.

"When we started to research this all across the country, Dennis's named popped up all over the place," he said,

Bailey has been fighting casino proposals since 2000, when slot machines were proposed for Scarborough Downs.

His biggest battle came in 2003, when he became the strategist for Casinos No!, a political action committee that successfully fought a state-wide referendum that would have allowed Maine's Indian tribes to build a casino, mostly likely in Sanford.

According to Bailey's resume, he "gained widespread prominence for his central role in the campaign."

But some say that Bailey was merely the public face of an effort that involved many other people.

Much of the campaign's success was due to work of campaign manager Corey Haskell, spokesperson Valerie Landry, pollster Christopher Potholm, and fundraiser Lisa Gorman, according to Roy Lenardson, who worked on the campaign and runs a public relations company, Strategic Advocacy Consulting Group.

"For me, he's had the good fortune of having really good people around him that are willing to give him a lot of credit," Lenardson said. "It was really a dream team. It wasn't a Dennis thing. I don't know if Dennis can re-create that in other states."

Bailey's fans, though, say he has played an instrumental role in keeping Indian casinos out of Maine.

"He is one of the most intuitively intelligent people I have ever known," said former Gov. Angus King. "He can size up a situation instantly and has a real knack for how to re-position it and help people understand it and put the response in terms that are easy to grasp."

Bailey worked for King as his press secretary.

Potholm said Bailey's success is due to his ability to get other people on his team to listen to him.

"Your biggest danger is not from your opponents, but your friends," he said. "Your friends not only want you to win, but to win their way. Dennis is very good at getting people on his side to follow his strategy."

Bailey, 54, said he never intended to become a national expert on casinos. He said his strong feelings about casinos evolved over time as he learned more about their negative impacts on society.

He said he has become convinced that casinos take advantage of people, many of them poor, who don't understand the slim odds of ever beating the house.

He puts casinos in the same category as companies that sell fake diet pills.

"I feel it's a fraud and a scam. The government has the right to say, 'No, this is something you can't do,'" he said during an interview at his office on Exchange Street. "I'm passionate about it. If I were doing this for the money, I would be on the other side. That's where the money is."

He said his anti-casino efforts don't bring that much income and that most of his firm's business is focused on giving media relations advice to corporate and nonprofit clients.

Bailey grew up in Livermore Falls, in a household where politics were often discussed during the family dinner. His mother was the town manger, and his father ran a downtown store that sold furniture on one side and records and musical instruments on the other.

Dennis Bailey has an identical twin brother, Doug Bailey, who owns a public relations firm in Boston and serves as campaign coordinator for Casino Free Mass.

The Bailey twins graduated from the University of Maine, and both worked for newspapers before getting into public relations.

Doug Bailey worked for the Boston Globe as a reporter and editor.

Dennis Bailey was a reporter for the Lewiston Sun Journal, the Journal Tribune in Biddeford, the Maine Times and the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram.

Bailey left the Portland Press Herald in 1990 to work as press secretary for Rep. Tom Andrews, D-Maine. In 1994, Bailey joined King's gubernatorial campaign. At the time few people thought Maine would elect an independent to the governor's office.

King said Bailey gave his nascent campaign instant credibility.

In 2000, Dennis Bailey and advertising executive Mark Robinson opened Savvy Inc. Robinson, who left the company three years later, declined to comment for the story.

Bailey also handled media strategy for the campaigns that defeated two state-wide tax-cap referendums, Carol Palesky's measure in 2004 and the Taxpayer Bill of Rights measure in 2006.

The high-profile role that Bailey has played defeating casino proposals in Maine, along with his aggressive style, has angered the state's native tribes.

Rep. Donna Loring, the Penobscot Nation's representative in the Legislature, said she believes that Bailey is just an opportunist motived only by money.

"I think he's just sort of happened upon a job that pays very well. It's sort of like a modern-day Indian fighter," she said.

Bailey said his biggest mistake was his decision in 2003 not to campaign against a measure on the same ballot allowing a racino - a combined race track and casino.

That measure passed and resulted in Hollywood Slots, in operation today in Bangor with 475 machines and has plans to expand.

Bailey said he had assumed that voters would either reject or accept both ballot measures and was surprised when they approved the racino.

"It was a strategic error on my part," he said.

Bailey has run five campaigns against casino measures, and he has won every one. He claims to have a record of 5-0. But he doesn't put Hollywood slots in the loss column.

"We didn't run a campaign against it," he said. "We don't count that as a loss per se."

Loring said Bailey has "destroyed" the Maine tribes' hopes for economic self-sufficiency.

But she has also come to respect Bailey's skills.

"I believe he's very sharp, and I think he's a very aggressive, take-no-prisoners kind of guy," she said. "I just think it's too bad that our side hadn't grabbed him first."

Staff writer Tom Bell can be contacted at 791-6369, or at:

tbell@pressherald.com

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