Tawdry campaign lands in Sin City

LAS VEGAS — The most tawdry presidential fight in recent memory will host its final debate tonight in an appropriate place: Sin City.

You couldn’t pick a better location for a campaign that is concluding with competing claims of sexual misconduct and lewdness.

{mosads}On Wednesday, Breitbart published the latest salvo: A video interview with a former reporter from Arkansas who accused Bill Clinton of groping her on three separate occasions.

Breitbart’s chairman has taken a leave to work as the CEO of Republican nominee Donald Trump’s campaign.

It’s not clear if Trump will be bringing Leslie Milwee to the Las Vegas debate — though he is bringing Malik Obama, President Obama’s half brother.

It’s an effort by Trump, who is trailing Democrat Hillary Clinton badly in polls, to try to bring some amount of good attention to his flailing campaign.

Trump and Clinton will have the attention of the country when they take the stage at the cavernous Thomas & Mack Center, which plays host to everything from University of Nevada/ Las Vegas, basketball games to Disney on Ice.

The Cox Center next door has been repurposed into a state-of-the-art media filing center, with seats for more than 1,000 reporters, dozens of private booths for television broadcasts and scores of TV screens hanging from the ceiling and transmitting the surrounding action in real time.

Outside the building, armies of satellite trucks are parked in front of the building’s reflective windows installed to beat back the desert sun.

A carousel of reporters, anchors and pundits revolve in and out as hundreds of candidate supporters hold signs and angle to be seen on live TV, as they do at football games.

The final debate has attracted media from all over the globe. 

Danish filmmakers are on site to shoot a documentary on U.S. politics, while an anchor from Czechoslovakia stands in front of his cameraman reporting back home about the state of the presidential race here.

Trump is gambling that a solid showing in the final debate can bring new life to his campaign with less than three weeks before Election Day.

The first two debates were disastrous for Trump, who has also had to beat back accusations from more than a half-dozen women that he aggressively kissed or groped them without their consent.

Then there’s the tape that has undeniably become the most damaging moment of the campaign for the Republican nominee. Trump was caught in the 2005 tape speaking to “Access Hollywood” host Billy Bush about women allowing him to do anything because of his celebrity.

“Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything,” Trump said.

Given the comments and the various accusations, it’s not surprising that one of the big questions heading into the debate is whether Clinton and Trump will shake hands.

They didn’t at the beginning of the last debate, though Trump extended his arm and Clinton shook his hand at its conclusion.

Vegas is the betting capitol of the nation and an international destination for adult-themed fun, but you can’t actually put down any money on Clinton or Trump. You can’t even bet on whether they’ll shake hands, as the casinos aren’t allowed to take political-themed bets.

Online and in Europe, gamblers can lay money down on everything from whether the candidates will shake hands to how many times they will interrupt each other and what color their outfits will be.

It’s not clear if any prop bets exist on whether the election will be rigged, a charge Trump has made repeatedly in the last week.

While temperatures on stage will be hot, the Vegas air is cool and dry, with the temperature sitting in the low 60s in the morning and expected only to reach as high as 80 in the heat of the day.

Along the strip, tourists, businesspeople and entertainment professionals are going about business as usual, packing the casino halls and laying bets on sports games and races.

It’s easy to forget that the two candidates will actually be verbally sparring on a college campus.

Students hurrying around expressed their annoyance with the intrusion from the press, finding their normal paths to class are blocked off by acres of fencing manned by police and Secret Service agents keeping guard.

VIPs whiz past the students in golf carts to make their media hits or pre-debate strategy meetings.

Some students are getting into the spirit, wearing blue Clinton or red Trump swag. One woman stalked the campus in a “Trump that bitch” T-shirt.

A bit of Vegas’s color has crashed into the campaign.

Iconic showman Wayne Newton revealed himself to be a Trump supporter, defending the GOP nominee against accusations that he groped women.

And resorts magnate Steve Wynn swung by Fox News Channel’s temporary studio here to express his frustration with what he said has been an ugly campaign.

“I think the conversation’s all wrong,” Wynn told anchor Neil Cavuto. “I don’t think that the dialogue has shown the proper respect for the process itself. What’s going on in America is complicated, important and worth serious, serious public discussion.”

In another interview on CNN, Wynn said he wished the candidates would have a good old-fashioned talk about budgetary policy and the deficit.

There hasn’t been a ton of policy talk in the debates so far. If you could bet on it in Vegas, most would likely bet against it in the third debate as well.