Steve Wynn’s Foxborough casino fiasco made one thing clear: Money apparently can’t buy you love – or competent public relations advice – these days.

From start to finish, the Las Vegas tycoon’s campaign to woo Foxborough voters and win approval for a mega casino next door to Gillette Stadium was a complete disaster.

And the only one looking as bad as Wynn in this whole thing is fellow billionaire and erstwhile business partner Robert Kraft, who contributed a couple "what-in-the-world-is-this-guy-thinking?" moments of his own during the whole mess.

Yes, what in the world were these guys thinking? This was a proposal doomed to failure right from the start, when two of the world’s richest men came to the bizarre conclusion that Foxborough, a relatively affluent Boston suburb, would make the perfect home for a $1 billion casino.

Last week’s town elections – in which two anti-casino candidates were swept into office by outraged residents, prompting Wynn and Kraft to formally end their quixotic campaign – were just the icing on the cake.

And that was the high point. It was all downhill from there.

Location, Location, Location

At the risk of beating a dead horse, wasn’t there anyone in Kraft or Wynn’s inner circle with enough guts to tell it straight?

It certainly doesn’t seem that way. Rather, it looks like two billionaires surrounded by yes men and women, each encouraging the other into a foolhardy venture that a healthy dose of common should have been enough to abort before it got started.

Kraft, for good reason, is one of New England’s most respected businessmen, beloved for his and for the remarkable job of turning the once hapless Patriots into perennial winners.

But the Krafts are only largely tolerated, not loved in Foxborough, where the stadium is seen as much as a source of miserable Route 1 traffic jams as a point of local pride.

There’s always been an uneasy relationship between Krafts and the locals, with years of griping about loud concerts at the stadium and the boisterous behavior of the revelers. That’s hardly a recommendation for bringing in a massive casino, with all its traffic and other attendant headaches.

But there was an even bigger misunderstanding on the part of our two clueless billionaires of the increasingly upscale demographics of suburban Boston.

Wynn tried to buy love, offering to pay the town of Foxborough $10 million to $15 million a year and provide thousands of local jobs. But this isn’t some down at the heels inner-city neighborhood or poverty stricken boondock.

While casino jobs might appeal to some out-of-work residents, Foxborough is a white collar town sitting amidst the most well-off suburban tracts in the country.

Residents are worried about their property values, not putting the next meal on the table.

Ham-handed PR tactics

But an already bad situation was made worse by an all but disastrous publicity campaign.

The more Wynn pushed, the more opposition he faced, with each new ad campaign in the local papers and radios seeming only to stir the pot more.

But still he kept at it, taking out full-page ads in the Foxborough paper, funding a ridiculous group called Jobs for Foxborough, and even resorting to radio ads in Boston. His last chance came last week, when town elections were held for two of Foxborough’s five selectmen seats. Town selectmen had voted 3-2 not to negotiate with Wynn – and two of them were up for reelection last week.

For supporters of a Foxborough casino, the only hope was to get their candidates into office and reverse that vote.

Wynn’s ad barrage just happened to hit its peak in the run up to the elections – but of course, all those ads touting his plans had nothing to do with those silly little Foxborough elections, or so his supporters insisted.

Well, it’s a good thing Wynn wasn’t spending all that ad money in hopes of influencing the race, because the pro-casino candidates got thrashed.

But events, and his erstwhile business partner, also seemed to conspire against Wynn as well. Inexplicably, as Wynn was trying to win over Foxborough residents, Kraft took a step that all but wiped out any remaining good will, suing the town in a dispute over a Route 1 billboard. Then, when it seemed as if things couldn’t get worse, there was the case of the crazy casino supporter, who showed up at the door of a Foxborough selectman who had voted against negotiating with Wynn to deliver a death threat.

Jobs for Foxborough, the Wynn front group, found itself scrambling to point out it had no connection with this overzealous supporter, but the damage was done.

If there’s any lesson to be learned, it’s clearly time for Wynn – and, for that matter, Kraft – to look into hiring from fresh PR talent as they seek to repair some seriously tarnished reputations.

If so, they might consider Foxborough resident Holly Steel.

She’s the public relations executive, who, currently between jobs, outfoxed all of Wynn and Kraft’s highly-paid flaks with her No Foxborough Casino campaign.

After all, they could do a lot worse.