Poker Players Send Leach Home?

The Des Moines Register ran a story yesterday about a national group of poker players that are taking credit for Jim Leach's defeat saying they targetted him after he sponsored a bill against internet gambling.

Among those who knew about the law, 15 percent said it influenced them to support Loebsack. Another 10 percent said that it influenced them to support Leach.

Online poker advocates contend that was enough to doom Leach in a race lost by just 5,711 votes.

"There's enough evidence here to suggest it didn't help him," said Thomas Riehle of RT Strategies, a partner in the firm that conducted the poll Sunday through Monday. It had a margin of error of 3 percentage points, Riehle said.

However, Greg Wierzynski, Leach's chief of staff, scoffed at the notion that the gaming ban was Leach's undoing. "As we all know, when poker players have weak hands, they bluff," he said.

Wierzynski said Leach's congressional office received "a bunch of angry phone calls" from opponents of the gambling bill, but couldn't tell whether any were from Iowans because the callers refused to identify themselves. The calls were "laced with four-letter words," added Wierzynski.