When Will Barack Obama Apologize to Las Vegas?

President Obama is swinging through Las Vegas, NV today on another day of campaigning. City residents and business leaders are wondering if the president will make time between collecting campaign cash and making the odd attack on Republicans to apologize to their city.

In 2009, the president scolded Americans not to “blow a bunch of cash in Vegas.” Residents weren’t amused then and aren’t amused now. Business conventions canceled on Sin City, costing jobs and revenue. Vegas suffers a massive 12% unemployment rate, which might have been mitigated if the president hadn’t gone out of his way to tell people not to go to the tourist destination, more than once. The powerful Culinary Union is even threatening to sit out the 2012 election out of its anger with the Democrats.

So an apology is in order. But it’s unlikely to come. Obama easily won Nevada in 2008, but the ghastly unemployment rate in Las Vegas combined with the president’s repeated scolds to not take business there could put the state in play this year.