How would venture capitalist treat Illinois like a business? Probably by selling us off to surrounding states

I’m among those people who are skeptical of business executives who think they can run for elective office on a promise to run government more efficiently just like they do their business interests.

Hence, I was never inclined to take seriously the talk of Republican gubernatorial nominee Bruce Rauner, the venture capitalist, whose wife on Tuesday was in a new campaign ad saying her husband, “will make the tough decisions to create jobs and bring back Illinois.”

I DON’T BUY it. Not for a moment. Particularly because Rauner’s fortune (the one that has enabled him to spend more than two dozen millions of dollars on his own campaign to ensure everybody knows who he is) was made in the business of buying up companies, shaving them down to size to bleed off excess assets, then selling the end result to someone else for a profit.

These aren’t the kind of business executives who know a thing about the products their companies produce, or the services they provide.

It is how Rauner can say with a straight face that he’s not really responsible for any of the harm caused to elderly people who resided in the nursing homes his firm once owned – reportedly because the owners were more interested in cutting costs than in caring for their residents.

Now I’m aware that some people could care less about this aspect.

OTHERS ARE IDEOLOGICALLY inclined to want to favor those business executives, figuring that their financial well-being is somehow more important to our society as a whole than those of the individual working stiffs who comprise the bulk of us.

It’s one of those points on which we’ll “agree to disagree,” and come Tuesday evening, we’re going to see whether those people comprise a majority.

At least a majority of those who bother to cast ballots. Because way too many of us are too apathetic to take the time to vote – which I think means they deserve whatever malfeasance falls upon them because of our elected officials.

The rest of us are going to take a stance, and it won’t be limited to just this election cycle.

THERE ALREADY ARE people who are starting to trash 2016 presidential dreamer Hillary R. Clinton, who last week in Massachusetts made a comment that would appear to put her on the opposite side of people like Rauner.

She talked about how business interests are in business to make a profit – and not to create jobs.

“Don’t let anybody tell you that it’s corporations and businesses that create jobs,” Clinton said. “You know that old theory, trickledown economics. That has been tried, that has failed. It has failed rather spectacularly.”

Which is heresy to all those individuals who want to think of the legacy of President Ronald Reagan as being second only to the New Testament in terms of holier-than-thou scripture that must never be questioned by any “right-thinking real American.”

I’M SURE THE people who are now all eager to see Rauner become Illinois’ new governor are the same ones who will find multiple ways to trash Clinton should she decide to run for president come the 2016 election cycle.

Personally, I have always seen business-oriented types as being more interested in controlling costs. Actually having to operate a business, or try to expand one, is something that is too difficult for many of them to comprehend.

Which is why I wonder how would a “Gov. Rauner” truly try to operate Illinois? I suspect open defiance of the legislative branch would be one step – creating something uglier than the Blagojevich/General Assembly ties.

But if he really followed the ‘venture capitalist’ mentality to the letter, we’d get a state government slashed to the bone, with several essential services deleted entirely.

THEN PERHAPS WE’D see the state hacked to pieces – allowing Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri and Kentucky to expand symbolically.


So much for Rauner’s statement in his Tuesday ad spot that he “just want(s) to save our state." Perhaps he should start by teaching his campaign employees to lose the ketchup bottle whenever they're in the presence of a hot dog (or anything else, for that matter).

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