BILL DALEY AND THE GOVERNOR’S OFFICE: THE BROTHER ALSO RISES?

6/13/13

Bill Daley has formed an exploratory committee for a run for governor in 2014.   Forming an exploratory committee permits a candidate to raise funds for a race but is not a formal declaration of candidacy.   So Mr. Daley is not yet in the race but, as he said

“I’m in this race, okay?  Yes, it’s an exploratory committee because that’s how you start.  You don’t run, you don’t walk.”

If Mr. Daley were not a politician, I would be inclined to say that we have to take the man at his word.   But Mr. Daley is, after all, in the politics business and, as I have said on numerous occasions, prevaricating is at least as easy as telling the truth for those in that business.   Further, it’s difficult to determine what the above statement means.   He’s in the race, but he didn’t add the words “to stay” and didn’t say if he intends to stop walking and start running.   One doesn’t know how carefully parsed Mr. Daley’s words were, and it wouldn’t matter much because of the nature of Mr. Daley’s line of work. 

Yours truly’s thoughts on this latest development have not changed since I wrote the now seminal “GOVERNOR BILL DALEY…SENATOR BILL DALEY.   THERE JUST WASN’T THE TIME…” a week ago.   I’m surprised, or at least I would be surprised if Mr. Daley’s announcement meant more than it apparently means.   Bill Daley is a cautious, calculating man.  As a Daley, he avoids elections in which the outcome is not a foregone conclusion.   The politics of a Daley run for governor don’t make much sense, at least at this juncture.   It would seem he would stand no chance in a three way primary with a powerhouse woman candidate (Lisa Madigan) in the race and the incumbent governor.   The Daley name, which only briefly, during Rich Daley’s first few terms as mayor, had any cachet downstate, has been badly tarnished, and not only downstate, by the missteps of Rich Daley’s last few terms, most saliently the parking meter deal and the general growing perception that city government was something of an ATM for Daley pals during those last few terms.   The polls I have seen have shown Mr. Daley far behind Governor Pat Quinn and even further behind Attorney General Lisa Madigan, who people are assuming is an all but declared candidate.   So why is Mr. Daley looking like he is going to run?

Perhaps, as John Kass of the Chicago Tribune indicated last week, Mr. Daley knows something we don’t know, i.e., that Lisa Madigan has decided not to run.  Maybe Mr. Daley is trying to smoke out Lisa Madigan, trying to force her to show her hand.  If she gets in, he can still get out.   Perhaps at the age of 64, Mr. Daley thinks this is his last chance for high, or any, elected office, so he is throwing caution to the wind…my least favorite and least likely explanation.  Or maybe Mr. Daley is not motivated by political calculation but by a sense of duty and genuinely feels he is the man that can solve our state’s fiscal problems and is called to do so before all is lost.   One would like to ascribe such noble motives to Mr. Daley; he is one of the most competent and, from what I have seen, one of the more noble politicians out there.  But he is still a politician and the adjective “noble” is difficult to fit with the noun “politician” under any circumstances.   If this is his motivation, however, my hat is off to him.

There is always the crazy idea, that I advanced last week, that Mr. Daley will eschew the primary altogether and run as an independent, especially if Pat Quinn somehow emerges as the Democratic nominee.   This notion is interesting and tantalizing, indeed, but still quite unlikely.  Should it happen, though, you heard it here first.

I know no more than what I read in the papers.  As I said last week, I don’t know Mr. Daley; I have never even met Mr. Daley, much to the detriment of both of us.   All I know is that the next few months will be interesting.

One of the most interesting aspects of a Daley candidacy is whether he will be able to raise the kind of money people assume he can raise.   When his brother was mayor and controlled the levers of power, raising money was no problem; see my comments two paragraphs prior regarding Chicago’s government’s becoming something of an ATM for Daley pals.  But Rich Daley can’t do much for people any more; the supposed tough guys and hardened pols who used to bow and scrape before him are now bowing and scraping before Rahm Emanuel.  Mr. Emanuel is the one handing out the contracts and raising the dough from the grateful.  If Mr. Emanuel, who has raised the normal political practice of not doing anything for anybody that doesn’t benefit him to an art form, decides that there is no reason any longer to help the Daley family, could he indicate to potential donors that writing Bill Daley a check might not only not curry the Mayor’s favor but might engender his wrath?   Why would Mr. Emanuel want to help out the Daley family which, except for John, is out of power, when he still needs the help, or at least the acquiescence, of the Speaker Mike Madigan?   Personal loyalty?   Gratitude?   C’mon!   We’re talking Rahm Emanuel here!

If Mr. Daley suddenly finds potential donors asking “What ya done for me lately?” the implications for his bid for governor are obvious.  And Mr. Emanuel might be the man who induces potential donors to ask that question.   Then the Daleys will know they backed the wrong horse in 2011, but will only be able to watch helplessly as they fade into irrelevance.   Some mistakes in politics are indeed irreversible.

See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for further illumination on how things work in Chicago and Illinois politics.