A group of adult club owners says they're asking customers to register to vote and then vote to dump President Bush come November.
"It's not to say our industry loves John Kerry or anything like that," said Exotic Dancer publisher Dave Manack to the Chicago Sun-Times, "but George Bush, if he's re-elected, could be very damaging to our industry."
That seemed like news to Republican National Committee spokeswoman Heather Layman, who told the newspaper she didn't know why the businesses would deem Bush unfriendly to their industry. But she admitted "that the strip club owners are not a group we targeted," when the GOP signed up over a million in a voter registration drive this year.
The Association of Club Executives, the trade association for adult night clubs, is asking its member owners to get customers and workers to register to vote and go out to vote against the president, with ACE president Micheal Ocello saying Bush is bad for business.
''We must do everything within our power," said Ocello in a letter to about four thousand club owners, made available to the Sun-Times, "to help ensure that Bush and his ultra-conservative administration are removed from the White House. If we are to survive, we must act now.''
This doesn't mean that all customers or even workers might vote that way. Consider Christopher Ness, a customer at the Isabella Queen adult club, between Janesville and Beloit, whose owner says a vote against Bush is a vote for his survival. Ness told the Sun-Times he filled out a registration form at the Isabella Queen recently – but plans to vote Republican in November. "I like the way it is now," he told the paper.
