Friday, July 7, 2017

“A Billionaire for the Rest of Us”

The 2018 gubernatorial race in Illinois is taking shape as a battle of the billionaires. A leading Democratic contender is a billionaire. The Republican incumbent may be a billionaire. I’d say that only his hairdresser knows for sure, but the governor is just folks, droppin’ -gs and whatnot and goin’ to the barber every four weeks. No hairdresser for him.

I offer this parodic campaign slogan to any billionaire who’d like to use it. I was happy to discover that it appears nowhere on the Internets:



Does being a billionaire disqualify one from running for public office? I don’t think so. But I’d rather put my vote elsewhere.

[The barber data is made up. I have no idea how often Bruce Rauner gets a haircut.]

comments: 3

Geo-B said...

We have an amateur governor and an amateur president. I am not voting for another rich guy to learn on the job (not that I voted for these guys).
I think professional teachers should teach universities (rather than some guy who was successful in business and therefore should teach business courses), I don't want to take my illness to some guy who is kind of interested in medicine rather than a professional doctor, and I don't think someone who hasn't held elective office should be leading states.
In a business you kind of get to say what goes and fire the opposition, as opposed to government where you need to negotiate and deal with problems in complex ways that exceed 140 characters. The head of a state shouldn't be the bucket list reward for some guy whose chief attribute is that he is rich enough to buy the public's attention.

Michael Leddy said...

We’ve been receiving mailings from J.B. Pritzker, two a day, one for each of us, four or five days in a row. You too? I’d like to know if these mailings are meant to coincide with a local appearance or if everyone in the state is getting them at the same time.

Geo-B said...

We have been involved politically, have worked for candidates, live in Rogers Park, Chicago, my wife has spoken at rallies. We haven't received any Pritzker mailings, although she receives a lot of e-mails from the campaign.