Rauner political influence, skill comes from friendly rich peoples’ wallets

What was that old line used to describe George W. Bush’s political and business acumen – he was born on Third Base, and thinks he hit a triple?!?

I’m starting to wonder if we need a similar line with regards to Gov. Bruce Rauner, who might not literally have been born to big money (I suspect real ‘old money’ thinks our governor is a garish rube), but certainly thinks the fortune he has accumulated and has access to entitles him to behave politically like a boor.

WE ALL REALIZE he got himself elected governor with absolutely no political qualifications because he was able to tap into millions of dollars more than anybody else could.

An amount that if you think about it too much becomes almost obscene – how many worthy goals could have been accomplished for the betterment of our society instead of spending it on rounds of campaign advertising meant to distort reality?

Now, it would seem that Rauner’s approach to governing is going to be the same – tap into so much money that regular people couldn’t even fathom having access to and use it to mold a public opinion that will be gullible enough to buy whatever he says.

All of this is to say that I was appalled by learning that Rauner’s “Turnaround Illinois” political action committee has come up with its first donor.

BOTH THE CHICAGO Tribune and Sun-Times reported Monday of the State Board of Elections filing showing that billionaire Sam Zell (who once tried to mold the Chicago Tribune in his own image) came up with a $4 million contribution.

I’m not saying I find it particularly noble when a political person says their campaign fund was constituted by people donating $5-10 each – as though the tiny amounts are somehow honorable.

But the reverse is also true – there’s nothing noble about someone who thinks that by coming up with some sort of private fund that will enable him to buy airtime and other communications tools he can somehow “buy” our political love.

I really think that this fund likely to receive donations from the many wealthy people who funded Rauner’s electoral campaign (along with the many millions of his own money he loaned himself) is meant to come up with all kinds of negative ads meant to make our legislators sound vapid, stupid and downright mean-spirited when they refuse to go along with his anti-organized labor rhetoric.

THIS IS THE governor who complains about the fact that labor unions have too much influence over political people because of the fact that they can help certain types of candidates raise the kind of money they need to hold their own against politicos who have the backing of big business-type interests.

Maybe it isn’t some ideological belief against unions as much as Rauner wants to be all-dominant over who has a say about what government does?

Which makes this particular political action committee sound downright venal.

This coming at a time when Rauner types are trying to get local government officials to pass symbolic resolutions meant to show how much they agree with his anti-union desires – his fantasies that would (in his own mind, I’m sure) culminate with “right to work” status coming to Illinois.

WHICH BASICALLY AMOUNTS to making it legal for companies to harass those interests that want to have union representation on their jobs!

I find it interesting that both the City Council and Cook County Board this week are contemplating resolutions expressing opposition to Rauner’s “Turnaround Agenda,” which probably has Rauner thinking in terms of what tactics he must use to counter the significant negative blow his political dream will take.

In the world of partisan politics, making dreams become reality costs money. If Rauner can’t find more millions of dollars from business interests concerned with their selves, then the desires of the people might actually prevail.

That might be the most appalling thought of all to the business interests – and one we should all keep in mind in coming months when we hear all the nasty rhetoric about how Rauner is being prevented from doing what he thinks is right.

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Cubs finally (maybe?) sold

While many people enjoy the thought of attending a professional baseball game as part of the Independence Day holiday celebration, it would appear that the Ricketts family took things a step farther.

It appears they finalized a deal to buy themselves a major league (theoretically, that is) ball club – the Chicago Cubs.

THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE reported Monday that Tribune Co. reached a tentative deal to sell the Cubs to the Ricketts family, a deal that could have been made months ago had it not been for the stubbornness of some officials that any transaction involving the Chicago Cubs set records for the amount of money paid for a ball club.

But in these tough economic times, nobody is going to pay record-high prices.

And what seems odd about the deal as reported by the newspaper is that the actual price is pretty close to what was nearly agreed upon several months ago. This plot of land, which hasn't changed much in 76 years, could be a valued part of the overall Tribune/Cubs transaction.

So for somewhere in the area of $850 million, the Ricketts family will get the rights to operate a National League ball club in Chicago, ownership of a square block of land at Clark and Addison streets in the Lakeview neighborhood and one-quarter ownership of the Comcast Sports Chicago cable channel (ch. 37 on many local systems).

THIS DEAL IS close enough that baseball officials are turning over the financial data to that legal entity known as Major League Baseball.

For now the owners of all the other 29 teams in the American and National leagues will get to have their say (including Jerry Reinsdorf and his business supporters who run the Chicago White Sox). It will take a majority of them to agree that the Ricketts family isn’t “bad” for baseball.

Just what that means is vague. Baseball gets to define its ownership qualifications pretty much on its own terms, and likes to operate as though it doesn’t have to answer to anyone. Remember how the White Sox themselves a couple of decades ago could have been bought by the DeBartolos, but baseball officials suddenly got religion and complained about the family having interests in racetracks?

It was like Capt. Renault objecting to “gambling” taking place in Rick’s Café Americain, but it stuck.

SO WILL THE other owners find the equivalent of racetracks in the Ricketts business operation? Or will they be so eager to have the Cubs transferred to ownership that cares about the ball club that they will approve anything?

I hope so. Because even though I personally am a baseball fan who cares less about the Cubs or anything in the National League (except to see which team they put forth each year to lose the World Series to the American League champions), the fact that this Cubs transaction has stretched out for so long is embarrassing for this city.

After all, Sam Zell made it clear on the first day he and his group took over Tribune Co. that the one property they weren’t interested in was the Chicago Cubs.

He pleaded ignorance as to the ways of operating a major league baseball team, even though he had long been one of the anonymous business executives who supported Reinsdorf and the White Sox by owning a tiny sliver of that ball club.

ADMITTEDLY, MANY PEOPLE thought Zell was being overly optimistic when he said back in December 2007 that he’d sell the Cubs by Opening Day.

But here it is, mid-way through the 2009 season, and Zell still has the team in his possession. For a guy who was so eager to unload the team, it seems strange that his tenure will wind up consisting of two full seasons with the Cubs.

There was all the talk early on that the Cubs sale would top $1 billion – which would be a record for a professional baseball team. It was supposed to be evidence that the Cubs were somehow a property more treasured than any other sports franchise.

It ignored the fact that the previous records were set by companies that bought broadcast properties and also acquired the ball club so as to have direct control over the sports product they were broadcasting.

THE TEAM ITSELF isn’t worth that much (those of us who root for the White Sox wouldn’t pay more than a buck to see a ball club that hasn’t won a league championship in 64 years, but that’s just our funny little quirk about wanting to see a winner).

But in the end, it was those declines that are hurting the news business (both broadcast and newspaper) that caused people to quit being stubborn, and allowed the Ricketts family the potential of saying they got a “bargain” at $850 million.

That’s assuming the major league owners and the Bankruptcy Court that is reviewing the Tribune Co.’s finances these days don’t find reason to object.

I hope they don’t.

BECAUSE IF THE Zell era winds up running into Season No. 3 and he still has control of the team in 2010, then Chicagoans are going to start including the Cubs’ on-field woes among the list of failures that he brought to the Tribune Co.

The Tribune Co. stripped the Chicago Tribune down in content to the point where many of its longtime readers don’t recognize it, and failed to take advantage of many situational perks that appeared as though things were aligned for a championship or two on the North Side.

Zell was the guy who had a legacy of making big money out of financially struggling companies. But he could be converted into the guy who trashed the Tribune and the Cubs all in one shot.

Sell, Zell, sell it already.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Could the Chicago Cubs have new ownership by year’s end? It would (http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/07/cubs-sales-deal-finalized.html) seem so. How much (http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=34635) did a profit margin declining from 19 percent last year to 8 percent so far this year influence the decision to finally sell?

This fantasy (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-cubs21dec21,1,1477370.story) once was treated as reality.

Only the Big Shots make money

I don’t know what to make of the business situations of the two Chicago major metro newspapers these days, other than to figure out that someone is determined to bleed them dry of every last cent before letting them wither away.

It has been this week that two stories have managed to creep their way out of halls in which both newspapers are in Bankruptcy Court.

WE LEARNED THAT Sam Zell, the real estate developer who took on more than he could chew by buying the Tribune Co., could wind up being dumped from his prime spot in the restructuring of the company.

Meanwhile, it became known that over at the Sun-Times, there is a list of 20 executives who think they’re entitled to $1.8 million in executive payouts – regardless of what happens to the newspaper itself.

First, we’ll take the latter.

The owner of the Sun-Times and all those suburban newspapers they purchased during the past two decades asked for permission to pay the bonuses in the event the company is sold.

NATURALLY, THEY FOLLOWED the typical sense of business ethics – they asked for the terms of the deal to be kept under seal. So we don’t know who the 20 executives are, or how much of the $1.8 million each of them would receive.

But from the little we do know (largely because of Crain’s Chicago Business), it would be 40 percent of the executives’ base salary.

The reason this came out is the fact that the Sun-Times has been in Bankruptcy Court since March. This deal will need a judge’s approval in order to occur.

For once, we should all be grateful for the Internal Revenue Service, which already has issued an objection to the idea of these executives getting a bonus at all and that the specific amounts of the bonuses should be secret.

THIS IS ONE of those times when a newspaper company winds up looking hypocritical.

For if any other business (particularly one that has engaged in so much staff cutting in recent decades) were to try to pull a move like this, the papers would be doing everything they could to get at the information kept under wraps, then would be engaging in editorial rants meant to get the public stirred up.

They definitely wouldn’t care much about the argument that Sun-Times lawyers are likely to make when the case comes up again in Bankruptcy Court for a hearing on Wednesday – public knowledge of these bonuses would harm the company’s ability to find a buyer.

Only if a would-be buyer would be offended that part of his purchase price was going to ensure that all the people whose professional performance were unable to raise the newspaper from its problems would it be considered a hindrance.

PERSONALLY, I DON’T know what to think of what will become of the Sun-Times, although it has become fashionable among some people (including one-time Sun-Times owner Rupert Murdoch a couple of weeks ago) to predict that the Sun-Times is finally going to die off – putting it in the ranks of the Daily News, the American and the dozen or so other newspapers that have existed in Chicago throughout the years.

I’d like to think it could survive in some form because I still find its news product interesting to read and worthwhile to have.

Of course, to many of the people who are in the newspaper business these days, the “product” is about the last thing they care about.

That is the perception many have gained about Zell, who likely bought his way into the Tribune Co. thinking he could prolong its life with a few cuts, bleed a few dollars out of it, then close it off someday.

YET THE ECONOMIC events of the past year have hit newspaper advertisers so hard that he wasn’t able to bleed those bucks out of it that would have made the whole venture worth his time.

Which is what makes (to my mind) the recent reports about Tribune Co. (in bankruptcy court since December) so intriguing.

Control of Tribune Co. could be shifted from Zell and his group to a group of banks and investors. It appears that Zell would be out, unless these financiers see a specific reason to keep him on.

It’s not like he knows anything specifically about the news business, so some think he will be gone. Personally, I noticed a slight sense of glee in the reports that ran this weekend in the Chicago Tribune itself.

IS IT “DING, dong, the wicked witch is dead” at Tribune Tower these days? Or will Zell turn out to be some sort of fighter who will want to stay on to try to prove he’s not some sort of newspaper nincompoop?

Why do I believe that, for the right amount of money, Zell’s ego could be massaged just enough to leave. Could it be that the amounts of money the Sun-Times executives may receive will set a standard, so to speak, for how much Zell should get to go away from the one-time World’s Greatest Newspaper.

And if it really happened that way (it’s just my guess, at this point), could it be that only the guys on top make money, while the rest of us Chicagoans wind up a little bit information-less about the Second City.

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The day will come when “The Tower” won’t be Tribune office any longer

It doesn’t shock me to learn that the top management of Tribune Co. is seriously thinking of selling off their iconic office building overlooking Michigan Avenue and the Chicago River – and not just because the media company’s top boss is a real estate developer who buys and sells buildings for a living.

The building that combines with the Wrigley Building to give the “Magnificent Mile” its southernmost entrance point faces the prospect of being sold. That’s what Tribune boss Sam Zell says.

HE’S THROWING OUT the hints that a sale of the building could generate enough cash to keep the actual media properties going awhile longer (at least long enough that he can dream about a future economic uptick that could bolster the company’s long-term financial situation).

Some people are going to cite sentiment and tradition as reasons why the Tribune can’t leave the riverfront – the Chicago Tribune newsroom and corporate offices have been there since the 1920s.

But I can recall as long as 20 years ago hearing Tribune employees themselves talk about the day when they expected to be working in another building. If anything, my reaction to hearing Zell talk about a sale is to be amazed that the company (in previous incarnations) held onto the building as long as it did.

Whenever I heard Tribune newspaper people talk about “the Tower,” they would note that the printing plant had long ago left Michigan Avenue. The paper is printed at an elaborate (and huge) complex on Chicago Avenue where it has easy access to the routes that trucks use to ship bundles of newspapers to vendors across the Chicago area.

I WOULD ALWAYS hear how it would be likely that someday, Tribune Co. would just build an annex to the printing plant to house the newsroom. In some ways, it would make sense. Most newspapers are published out of complexes that more closely resemble factories than downtown office buildings.

Insofar as the idea of a newsroom close to the downtown business district being important, one needs to keep in mind that the Tribune already keeps most of its city-based reporters scattered in the press rooms of various government buildings. Much of its metro staff actually works out of offices in far-flung places such as Oak Brook, Vernon Hills and Tinley Park.

To these people, it really doesn’t matter where the “home office” is located. The whole concept of a downtown-based home is an antique concept.

The gothic castle-like structure desired by Col. Robert R. McCormick (with its 24th floor corporate suite designed with secret passageways so that McCormick could escape undetected) is a luxury most media companies never indulged themselves, and the few that did got rid of long ago.

BESIDES, THERE’S ALWAYS the possibility that talk of a Tribune Annex at their printing plant will never happen. They could just as easily sell the building, then pay rent to their new landlord. There likely would even be some understanding that the rent paid by the newspaper would be minimal – the new owner would be expected to find other ways to make money off ownership of “the Tower.”

It also would mean building maintenance would become someone else’s problem, rather than that of the Tribune.

That is what many people never seemed to comprehend when Zell talked about another division of the company – the Chicago Cubs, which for awhile was anxious to sell off the structure where the team plays its games.

“How can you have the Cubs not own Wrigley Field?,” they would ask. Actually, the Cubs would love it if they could find someone else to pay to maintain the building, and to oversee the significant renovation that will be necessary for the structure to remain in use for several more decades (which is the desire of many Cubs fans, even moreso than a championship ball club).

IF THAT ENTITY could enhance its image, and profitability, by being associated with the Cubs, that would be their reward.

I expect Zell to try to sell off as much in the way of assets as possible. So I can’t get all worked up over the chatter going around Chicago this week that he would dare to sell off the structure.

In fact, I can’t help but believe that the day will come when someone not only buys the building, but deems it worthy of destruction so that something “modern” could be built on the site – which not only oversees the river but also has an excellent view from its upper floors of Lake Michigan.

Col. McCormick had a wonderful view of the Midwestern landscape from his office at the tower. No wonder he was willing to “rule” over his “empire” like a feudal lord – he had a structure like a castle and a personal office/throne room that was impressive. Why look up to someone as low as a U.S. president, when he probably had a more impressive office than Franklin D. Roosevelt did?

SOMEONE IN THE future is going to decide that the site can be put to better use – just like the old Sun-Times Building (the sight of which I actually miss) was sold off and demolished so that New York real estate developer Donald Trump could erect a hideous-looking Chicago-based monument to himself.

When that day comes (and I fully expect to still be alive when it happens), then the one significant issue of historic preservation related to Tribune Tower will occur – what will happen to all those rocks?

For those of you who don’t know what I’m referring to, I mean all those culturally significant boulders that (throughout the years) have been embedded into the outer walls of Tribune Tower.

Tribune correspondents in the early years managed to snag chunks of structures such as the Great Wall of China and the Coliseum in Rome so that they could become a part of McCormick’s monument to himself. Since then, bits of rubble from the now-destroyed World Trade Center have been added. There’s even a rock from the Moon on display inside the building.

I WOULD HOPE that someone would have enough sense to remove those chunks before the building itself ceased to exist.

Otherwise, we face the possibility by forgetting that a piece of the Alamo (which Texans love to remember, but Tejanos could care less about) could be ground into the Chicago pavement, its dust to forever become a part of the Near North Side.

Then again, with Chicago’s growing Latino population, that act could turn out to be intentional.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Would Tribune Tower become like the Sears Tower, a Chicago structure (http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/steve_chapman/2008/06/tribune-tower-f.html) that kept its iconic name even after its parent company sold it off to outside (http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/theskyline/2008/06/tribune-tower-u.html) interests?

Chicago officially recognizes the significance of Tribune Tower to the city’s physical character (http://www.cityofchicago.org/Landmarks/T/TribuneTower.html), which could have had (http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=tribunetower-chicago-il-usa) a significantly different design had a different contest winner been chosen in 1922.