Bruce Rauner is a faux candidate for Illinois governor. He's going through the motions of running in the primary for the GOP nomination, scheduled for March 18. But his secret mission is to sink the candidacies of his three GOP opponents. These are current officeholders in Illinois state government, while he is a businessman with no prior public office experience.
But how...and why?
Right now, Rauner leads in the polls but has far less than half of likely GOP voters on his side. He's donated over $2,000,000 of his own money toward his campaign. But that's nothing compared to the several hundreds of millions of dollars of his net worth. In fact, his self donations should be considered an investment. His mission is to knock off his GOP opponents or, should he not win his party's nod, sufficiently sully them into irrelevancy by the time one of them might face Pat Quinn in November.
Then, soon enough, he will be rewarded for his service to the status quo. In Illinois, that will translate into favorable treatment for Rauner's business interests. And both Democratic and Republican politicians will be giving him this favorable treatment.
The GOP doesn't really want the governorship. They're perfectly satisfied to allow the incumbent (Quinn) to serve as a lightning rod for criticism regarding Illinois's fiscal crisis. They know that a Republican governor won't really be able to do anything to solve this crisis. They just want things to get so much worse here, that voters (or so they hope) will be in a mood to throw the Democratic bums out of office, hoping the Republican bums will be able to do "something."
Rauner is in a position, with his money and his willingness to air a barrage of commercials, to suck all the oxygen out of the room. His hapless GOP opponents will perish for lack of attention paid to their candidacies. His own candidacy has already planted the seeds of its programmed destruction by means of his stand on term limits.
Term Limits
This is the stand that will, by design, sink Rauner's campaign against Pat Quinn:
QUOTE:
[source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaRne6itWpg]
"The guts to cut spending and deliver term limits - Bruce Rauner."
:UNQUOTE.
The quote above is from a voiceover on a Rauner TV commercial. Like anyone else listening to this commercial, I thought, "You can't deliver term limits, since that would require a constitutional amendment which you yourself can't deliver." Anyone listening to that would (or at least "should") be doubtful of Rauner's credibility. So far, the media hasn't called him on this. If we had a less compliant media in this country, journalists and pundits should have raked him over the coals for this by now.
But they didn't. Not yet. And that's also by design. His GOP opponents don't bring this up because they are career politicians themselves who know that term limits would endanger their reliably elected incumbent friends - powerhouses within the party. So they don't want to make term limits an issue. As for the media, they'll withhold criticism because they want a horse race. Rauner is good enough copy without mentioning term limits, and has the potential of remaining good copy at least through the March 18th primary. And they don't want to turn up the heat on this issue until it's to their advantage - which will be when he faces off against Quinn.
This next quote, however, is a departure from the Rauner-will-deliver-term-limits theme. This is from a website paid for by Citizens for Rauner, Inc:
QUOTE:
[source: http://brucerauner.com/issue/government-reform/]
I’m not interested in a political career and don’t need money from the special interests. As governor, I will take them on directly and bring accountability back to state government. To do that, we can: Push for term limits. No governor should be allowed to serve for more than 8 years, and the legislature should be term limited as well.
:UNQUOTE.
Note carefully: In the first quote, Rauner "Has the guts to...deliver term limits." In the second, he says "we can: Push for term limits." Suddenly he's talking about "we" and only saying "can." And of course the word "push" is a far cry from delivering term limits.
And, finally, Rauner was quoted as saying: "I’m a big fan of term limits. I will never give myself more than eight years.” He could easily weasel his way out of that claim, should he be lucky enough to win two terms of office. He could say something like this:
"My intention was never to give myself more than eight years. But if the voters of Illinois should decide to give me more than that, I could finish the job of standing up to the entrenched interests which have dominated our state for so long. Ideally, we should have term limits in place by now, but that required a constitutional amendment which those interests rabidly opposed. So, minus that amendment, I ask the voters of Illinois to consider what I have to offer, compared to others who want this office in order to maintain the status quo."
What Bruce Rauner could do
Rauner could sign a contract stating that under no circumstances would he seek election for a third term and would not serve even if elected against his will. This contract would stipulate that he would be required to pay a hefty penalty should he violate the terms of this contract. Bruce Rauner is a businessman, so he knows what a contract is. Even though a politician's word can't be enforced in a court of law, he could structure this contract so that enforcement of penalty would be out of his hands. In other words, he'd have to go to court to try to void it.
If he, as he says, is worth several hundreds of millions of dollars, surely 100 of those millions could be placed under the direct control of designated trustees who would then pass that money on to the state's general revenue fund should they determine Rauner was in violation.
I'm a big advocate of such contracts, as witnessed by my two attempts to run for office (in 2008 and 2012) as the only presidential candidate in the history of the US to run on the basis of an electoral contract with the voters: In my case, any violation of my written campaign promises would have resulted in immediate forfeiture of the presidency. This link connects to my 2012 contract, with point ONE (of 31) explaining its enforceability:
http://ind4prez2012.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-electoral-contract-of-steven-searle.html
But...Bruce Rauner will offer no such contract. He's a very wealthy man who only wants to become wealthier. His business interests will never be far from his thoughts...which is exactly why he is pretending to run for governor.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Steven Searle, former candidate for US President (in 2008 and 2012)
Founder of the Independent Contractors' Party
Contact me at bpa_cinc@yahoo.com
No comments:
Post a Comment