Will the Real Bruce Rauner Please Stand Up?

[Snarkoleptic]

Nice deep dive into the secret world of Illinois' own John Kasich/Scott Walker/Rick Scott wannabe.

Much more at the link-
http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/October-2014/Bruce-Rauner/

...Rauner has positioned himself as a change agent while avoiding details that might turn off voters from either party. He sticks to a narrow script, advocating term limits and lower taxes without offering many specifics about what he would do differently from the “knuckleheads” (his term) currently running state government. Nor, as of presstime, has he discussed in any real detail some topics considered standard for politicians, such as his religious beliefs (if any), his family (beyond his wife and his maternal grandfather), or his stance on such hot-button social issues as abortion, gay marriage, drug policy, crime reduction, or capital punishment.

--snip--

Around this time, a 20-something brunette named Diana Mendley signed on to Rauner’s firm as an associate....In 1989, while working at GTCR, she married a fellow Stanford business grad from Highland Park, Lewis Ingall, whose father ran the pediatrics department at Evanston Hospital.

But back to Rauner’s wife, Beth. In the summer of 1990, she learned a devastating secret. According to court documents—obtained by Chicago and first reported by Business Insider this past May—Beth “discovered a paramour existed.”

That September, Beth, her husband, and their three young children moved to a large house in Winnetka. Two months later, Rauner left, moving first to an apartment in Evanston and then to one in Wilmette.

--snip--

(Rauner's divorce) proceedings dragged on for more than two years after Beth filed to end the decade-long marriage, in part because Rauner initially took the unorthodox step of forgoing a lawyer and representing himself in the divorce.

In May 1992, as settlement negotiations ground on, Beth’s lawyer filed a temporary restraining order against Rauner to stop him from buying more houses. According to Beth’s affidavit, Rauner had told her he was trying to buy a new home where “he intended to reside with his girlfriend.” The affidavit continues: “I fear that Bruce will enter into a contract to purchase an expensive home, which he will then decorate and furnish at great expense, causing dissipation of assets [and] irreparable harm to my rights and those of our minor children.”

--snip--

VeriFone is also a favorite of the Quinn campaign because it outsources much of its manufacturing to China, Singapore, and Brazil, providing Quinn with a sound-bite-ready example of how Rauner has hurt local workers. Quinn has also repeatedly criticized Rauner for the job cuts that typically follow the consolidations at the core of GTCR’s profits. And expect him to make more hay with allegations raised during the primary that GTCR plundered nursing homes, causing care to deteriorate and residents to die. “Bruce Rauner makes Mitt Romney look like Gandhi,” insists Doug Ibendahl, the former general counsel of the Illinois Republican Party. (In a televised debate in March, Rauner called ads citing the nursing home allegations “an outrageous political attack, taking advantage of a death or suffering of a family to score political points.”)

(my emphasis on the Gandhi/Romney part)

--snip--

And scrutiny there would be. Recall the Business Insider story, titled “Illinois Gubernatorial Candidate Divorced in 1993 After Alleged Affair.” (Rauner’s campaign issued no response.) And the Crain’s Chicago Business report that he had “clouted” one of his daughters into Chicago selective enrollment high school Walter Payton College Prep, despite the fact that she reportedly did not meet the entrance requirements. (Rauner told me in May 2013 that “we didn’t do anything inappropriate whatsoever.”)

There had already been bad press involving another of Rauner’s children. In 2010, Eric, then 21, got arrested for trying to rob a Walgreen’s drive-through in Missoula, Montana. He gave a pharmacist “a note threatening to blow his head off unless he handed over prescription painkillers, according to charging documents in the case,” reported the Daily Missoulian. The paper further reported that he told authorities that he was drunk at the time and addicted to pills. Originally charged with felony robbery, Eric, who had been unarmed, pleaded guilty in July 2012 to an amended charge of felony criminal endangerment and received a three-year deferred sentence.

[marym625]

1. He is a special kind of dick

Can't believe he even has a prayer.

I think a couple of new ads will help Quinn

[Snarkoleptic]

2. Some of the new Quinn ads are reall scorchers-

and

[Louisiana1976]

3. Those are good ads. Between those and the info in the OP, it's surprising more people haven't seen

through Rauner.

[Snarkoleptic]

5. Rauner has a seemingly bottomless pit of money he's shoveling

into his campaign ads. He's been on tv and radio almost non-stop for a year now.
You know how it goes..."There's that Rauner fella I saw on the teevee. He seems nice..."

I work with a lot of inactive voters and several are now motivated to vote based on my Rauner education campaign.
Hopefully we'll see more people awakening to the reality that his catchphrase "I'm gonna shake up Springfield" is not necessarily a good thing for the average voter.
Charter schools, tax cuts for the wealthy, regressive service taxes, libertarian dogma, would proudly support a IL State Gov't shutdown, eliminate the minimum wage (he's walking that one back right now)

Another of this billionaire's gimmicks is to show off his $17 plastic Timex watch in a cynical "see I'm just like you little people" attempt to relate to the low information voters.

This audio nugget is where he advocates abolishing the minimum wage. He later softened his position saying he'd support reducing the Illinois minimum of $8.25 down to the federal minimum of $7.25. He now says he would do neither.

[Drale]

8. We get 4 or 5 different phone calls from "different" orginaizations

for Rauner every freaking day. Its really getting ridiculous. Honestly I don't know how the over saturation doesn't turn people off to him as well as his horrible agenda.

[ColesCountyDem]

4. I know four precinct committeemen here who are absolutely refusing to support Rauner.

All four have plainly stated that they would rather have an 'honest but inept' Quinn (paraphrasing) than Rauner.

[mucifer]

6. the suntimes and trib endorsements are a real disappointment to say the least

[Snarkoleptic]

7. I suspect those were bought and paid for, just like the majority of Rauners supprt structure.

Here's an ugly new nugget detailing alleged intimidation of a Chicago Sun Times reporter.
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20141017/NEWS06/141019791/did-rauner-camp-interfere-with-this-sun-times-reporters-job

[ChairmanAgnostic]

9. The Trib was no surprise. But the Suntimes? Endorsing Rauner?

That is just hard to grasp.

[mucifer]

10. I have a very bad feeling about this.

I also think rauner bought off a lot of churches who are desperate for money. It's reallllly sad.

[Snarkoleptic]

11. Rauner used to own a 10% stake in Wrapports, LLC , which owns the Sun Times.

He sold his stake just before announcing his candidacy for Governor.

It would seem that his influence lingers on as noted in reply #7 above about intimidating a Sun Times journalist.
And then there's this sudden policy reversal.

After insisting for nearly three years that it would no longer endorse candidates for political office, the Sun-Times is reversing itself and formally backing Republican Bruce Rauner for governor.

http://www.robertfeder.com/

[lunasun]

12. Ok thank you snark and rob feeder . We were just trying to figure out at home why the

Sun times after not endorsing anyone for years jumped up and endorsed Rotner
A few connect the dots now are apparent

[Snarkoleptic]

13. The corporatocracy is.alive and well.

Polls are neck and.neck, so I am very vocal on this.
We cannot afford a corporate takeover of Illinois.

[raging moderate]

14. GROPING? Someone should follow Rauner around with a videocamera. NOW.

Last edited Thu Oct 30, 2014, 06:31 PM - Edit history (1)

I found it fascinating that Bruce Rauner may have been behind the false "groping" charge that was used to torpedo Rutherford's career. This summer, while working the Democratic booth at the Kendall County Fair, I was about 3 or 4 feet from Bruce Rauner when, technically, he committed PHYSICAL ASSAULT. I was on one side of the table straightening things, and another worker was on the other side straightening things. Bruce Rauner, who is well above 6 feet in height, strode up from behind this man, who is about 5 feet 6 inches in height. Bruce Rauner threw his arms around this man, enfolding him in a tight grip, and rocked him back and forth, crooning sarcastically to him, "MMM, if only I could hold you in my arms and rock you long enough to make you start thinking straight and vote Republican." Then Bruce Rauner swung around to me with his hand out, jauntily proclaiming, "I'm Bruce Rauner, and I'm the Republican candidate for governor!" Rauner was obviously oblivious to the fact that he had just committed a legal crime, Assault.

Somebody should have been following this man around with a hidden camera. I am sure Rauner has done this or something very like it, again. He lacks respect for his fellow human beings, and he lacks discretion about how he appears to others, and he lacks the simple MANNERS that his mother should have taught him. Or, more likely, she tried to teach him, but he refused to learn, presuming himself to be too superior to other people to need them.

[Snarkoleptic]

15. In private moments, I imagine him saying "boundaries are for saps and little people"

or something similar. He's a sociopath who makes his own rules.