Everyone should be paying attention to the Illinois Governor race because it's getting super expensive:
http://chicagoist.com/...
Shock waves reverberated across Illinois' political landscape Friday with the news that Kenneth Griffin, CEO of investment firm Citadel LLC and the richest man in the state, donated $2.5 million he just happened to have laying around to Bruce Rauner's carpetbagging "Hammer and Shake" gubernatorial campaign. The contribution makes Griffin the second largest donor to Rauner's campaign, behind Rauner himself.
Griffin's donation was recorded by the Illinois Board of Elections on June 11 and he's donated a total of $3.6 million to Rauner's campaign, including the use of Griffin's private airplane for Rauner's campaign use valued at $71,000 and counting.
You're probably asking, as we did when we read the news, "isn't there a law limiting campaign contributions in Illinois politics?" Why, yes, there is. Rauner, however, found a loophole in that law. By donating at least $250,000 of his own money to his campaign, Rauner was able to trigger a clause in the law lifting the limits to all candidates in the gubernatorial race. Rauner's initial self-contribution was for $249,000, just below the trigger mark and intended to hamstring his Republican primary opponents from raising money as long as possible. Rauner later funneled another $500,000 of his own wealth to his campaign, removing the caps. - The Chicagoist, 6/14/14
FYI, Griffin's the guy who said this:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
A billionaire backer of Mitt Romney said that the wealthy have "an insufficient influence" on politics and policy.
In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, Ken Griffin, founder of the hedge fund Citadel was asked if he thought rich people had too great of an influence on politics.
"I think they actually have an insufficient influence," he responded. "Those who have enjoyed the benefits of our system more than ever now owe a duty to protect the system that has created the greatest nation on this planet."
He also told the Tribune that he believes he should be able to donate an unlimited amount of money to Super PACs. - Huffington Post, 3/11/12
Here's a little more info:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
The $2.5 million contribution to Rauner's campaign is the largest The Huffington Post could identify to a political campaign in recent history. A number of states have no campaign contribution limits, but none have seen a single contribution this large in two decades, according to state records. (Individuals and corporations have likely given larger contributions, when adjusted for inflation, in the past.)
It's not as though Rauner was strapped for campaign cash. In fact, Rauner, a wealthy equity executive who lives in the tony suburb of Winnetka, has self-funded his campaign with $6.6 million.
In a perverse twist of campaign finance laws, Rauner's use of his own wealth to fund his campaign unlocked Griffin's giant contributions.
Illinois first enacted campaign contribution limits for state elections after two straight governors -- George Ryan (R) and Rod Blagojevich (D) -- were convicted of corruption. Following the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision that opened the door to unlimited independent campaign spending, the state changed those limits to allow them to be waived if a candidate self-funded, or if an independent group spent more than $250,000.
Griffin is not just a partisan who wants his picture taken with political leaders at galas. He has wide business interests in the state and supports policies that promote charter schools, slash public employee pension benefits, loosen regulation of finance, and lower taxes for the rich.
Pando Daily revealed that Griffin's hedge fund Citadel had purchased a large amount of Marriott Corp. stock just as political leaders in Chicago and Illinois approved $55 million in city resources for building a Marriott hotel on coveted real estate. - Huffington Post, 6/11/13
Yep, one billionaire helping out another billionaire to try and buy the governor's race. Nothing new to this picture but with the way Rauner's been trying to pitch his campaign, he's going to need all the money he can get:
http://www.nbcchicago.com/...
If you were wondering why Bruce Rauner brought a bunch of live chickens to Thursday's big "blueprint" announcement, then you would not be alone.
The Illinois gubernatorial nominee, running on the Republican ticket, offers an explanation for his decision to hire three caged prairie chickens as props for a news conference revealing his plan to cut what he called wasteful spending in the Land of Lincoln.
According to Rauner, the birds were meant to add visual oomph to his complaint that Illinois spent $100,000-plus to import prairie chickens via state aircraft as part of a population-growing mission.
"They are clear visualization of the fundamental problem," he argued. "We have out of control spending. We have irresponsible politicians making decisions with taxpayer money on a sloppy, unaccountable basis."
Rauner's 11-page "blueprint" for reforming Illinois government prompted a fiery response from Democrat Gov. Pat Quinn, whose campaign blasted it as "giant prank" and followed up with a point-by-point rebuttal. - NBC Chicago, 6/13/14
You can read Quinn's point-by-point rebuttal here:
http://capitolfax.com/...
By the way, here's a brief history on the whole prairie chicken thing Rauner's making a big stink about:
http://www.chicagomag.com/...
As early as the 1880s, when the population is believed to have been in the millions, the Illinois Natural History Survey was sounding the alarm. The state began cutting back on the prairie chicken hunting season, finally eliminating it in the 1930s, when the population was down to some 25,000. But hunting wasn’t the ultimate problem; land was. So the population continued to decline, to around 2,000 in the early 1960s.
At that point, the private Prairie Chicken Foundation of Illinois came into being, purchasing land for sanctuaries with the help of the Nature Conservancy and some of the biggest families in the state—the Donnelly printing brothers, steel-pipe scion and conservationist Cyrus Mark, Chauncey McCormick of the famous McCormick/Medill family. Their efforts largely failed as well:
In the summer of 1965, captive-reared prairie chickens were released on Cook County Forest Preserve District land near Barrington; but the birds vanished quickly, probably caught by predators. Prairie chickens do poorly in areas near trees, because hawks and owls perching there prey on them. But even birds introduced on extensive grasslands out of the reach of such predators tend to die off. Reintroduction efforts on extremely large expanses of grassland in Oklahoma, for example, have failed. “What usually happens is that they’re reintroduced, and the birds are just totally disoriented,” said Westemeier. “They fly until they die, essentially. The birds are dead within a few days, or maybe a month or two at most.”
As the prairie chicken population leveled out at an almost non-existent number, the Department of Natural Resources-managed sanctuary lands grew from 77 acres to almost 4,000 today. But as the lands expanded, the genetic landscape of Illinois prairie chickens remained narrow:
The result was a loss of genetic variation, which may have important consequences for the long-term viability of a population, possibly decreasing resistance to disease and parasites, and the ability of populations to respond to environmental changes. Another result of this genetic loss was lowered egg viability. From a hatching success of 91 to 100 percent in the 1960s, the rate in 1990 fell to 38 percent, and despite best efforts, the number of birds bottomed out in 1994, at 46.
Thus began the prairie chicken translocation effort, more than 20 years before it came into the crosshairs of Bruce Rauner:
The solution was to bring in new recruits. Between 1992 and 1998 a total of 271 greater prairie chickens from populations in Minnesota, Kansas, and Nebraska were relocated to Jasper County, while an additional 235 were released in Marion County, for a grand total of 506. Hatching success rebounded to as much as 94 percent. But the population continued to struggle as a series of cold, wet springs made the survival of newly hatched broods an even more treacherous business than usual. Fortunately, in the past few years the weather has been kinder. In 2007 the closely monitored population count was 51 males in Jasper County (up from 37 in 2006) and 59 males in Marion County (up from 48 in 2006).
More recently, the population has continued to struggle, most recently because of the 2012 drought. Even after the controversial prairie chicken translocation of 2014, the population is vanishingly small, though the importing of 200 more is planned through 2016. - Chicago Magazine, 6/13/14
The whole chicken stunt is just a way for Rauner to insult the voters' intelligence:
http://www.suntimes.com/...
Chickens are an easy and cheesy way to dumb down a complex conversation.
Make no mistake about one thing.
Bruce Rauner didn’t become a near-billionaire and nine-mansion/ranch owner without mastering financial complexities.
“I’ve been successful at everything I’ve ever done,” he bragged to reporters [and chickens] at a Thursday press conference.
Not successful, to this point anyway, in outlining a specific vision for how to save Illinois from fiscal ruin.
And why is that remarkable?
Because Rauner is a guy intimately acquainted with numbers.
You don’t found and grow a private equity enterprise like GTCR. — the “R” stood for Rauner — without a granular understanding of how to make money in the most sophisticated ways possible.
And so it is amazing — if not disheartening — to read the mere pamphlet that the Rauner campaign took more than a year to produce. It’s a brochure, not a plan. And specifics? It’s just the same old campaign trope. - Chicago Sun-Times, 6/13/14
Speaking of which:
http://www.nbcchicago.com/...
Illinois GOP gubernatorial nominee Bruce Rauner is making headlines of the scandalous sort for an alleged pay-for-play political donation that led to business for his private equity firm.
The multi-millionaire venture capitalist donated $300,000 to the 2002 campaign of former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, after which Rendell -- a Democrat -- helped promote Rauner's company, GTCR, for pension business in the state, the Chicago Tribune reported Thursday.
The report, something of a bombshell, throws a wrench into Rauner's anti-corruption crusade against Illinois' entrenched Democratic machine and rival Pat Quinn, whom the Republican candidate has repeatedly compared to disgraced ex-governor Rod Blagojevich.
Rendell told all to the Trib's right-leaning editorial board on Thursday while presenting his case for increased construction funding. He recalled that he touted GTCR to Pennsylvania pension board members after Rauner made a pair of contributions to his campaign fund.
"What happened is what I would do with anyone who gave me money," he said. "I would say to the pension boards … I'd just say, 'Listen, this is a company that I know is doing good things.' I knew Bruce's company was very successful. I said, 'Take a look at them.' And that was the best I could do." - NBC Chicago, 6/10/14
Plus the whole chicken publicity stunt just set Rauner up for ridicule:
http://politics.suntimes.com/...
Gov. Pat Quinn’s running mate on Friday blasted Republican Bruce Rauner’s recently unveiled proposal to cut government waste as “a joke” and horrendously short on details.
“Rauner had an opportunity to present a vision, a partial vision of how he was planning to address the critical needs of the state and for all practical purposes, yesterday he chickened out,” said Paul Vallas, running for lieutenant governor.
Vallas, speaking to reporters at a downtown hotel, was making a thinly veiled reference to a Rauner press event this week during which the gubernatorial candidate displayed live chickens to illustrate what he said was a wasteful program to boost the state’s prairie chicken population.
On Friday, Vallas held Rauner’s slender plan in one hand and a three-inch-thick copy of Quinn’s proposed state budget in the other.
“This is like a juvenile prank,” Vallas said. “This is what we’ve been waiting 465 days for?” - Chicago Sun-Times, 6/13/14
By the way, Rauner's 10 point plan comes up short:
http://www.wsiltv.com/...
Republican candidate Bruce Rauner has released a 10-step plan that he says cuts wasteful spending in Illinois. But many critics are already suggesting it doesn't go nearly far enough. By Rauner's own account, it would only save the state $1 billion, far less than what's needed.
Until now, Rauner has had the opportunity to sit back and point fingers at an unpopular administration. As election day inches closer, though, voters are demanding more from Rauner. So on Thursday, he unveiled a list of 10 steps to reform state government, but it's far from defined.
"It's pretty clear that he's got to say more. If he's not going to raise taxes, then I think he owes the people of Illinois some specifics about what he wants to cut. It's not going to be pleasant, nobody's going to like it, but it's time people be told the truth," says David Yepsen with the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute. - WSILTV, 6/13/14
Rauner's turning out to be a weak candidate. He's only looking strong because Quinn is vulnerable right now. It's going to be a tough and tight race with a lot of money flowing in but if we get our base out, Quinn can beat Rauner. Click here to donate and get involved with Quinn's campaign:
https://www.quinnforillinois.com/