Daley Dough
Cross posted from ICPR's blog, The Race is On:
Mayor Daley won the February election by a landslide. So why is he still collecting campaign funds? Since the election, Daley has accepted $460K in contributions from individuals and businesses. The only reason we know this is because he's giving to active candidates, forcing him to report his receipts in real time. To date, he's transferred out only $93K to candidates and ward committees. That’s about a fifth of the money he’s raised.
To put that in perspective, Senate President Emil Jones is also giving to active candidates ($2K to Ald. Tillman), and so he also has to report receipts until next Tuesday. And yet, he reports no receipts since the February elections. Daley may be Da Mare, but people don't just throw money at him for that reason; usually, it's because somebody asks. So why is he raising so much?
His post-victory money comes from a variety of sources. Miles D White, CEO of Abbott Labs, is the top donor with $100K. Gibson’s Steakhouse co-owners Stephen Lombardo and Hugo Ralli combined to donate $25K; J.W. Higgins of Higgins Development Partners also gave $25K, as did something called "UP PAC." UP PAC is not listed with the State Board of Elections, though the address reported by the Daley Campaign is the same as that for the Rosemont-based Builders Association PAC.
3 comments:
Seems obvious that he will run again in four years!
Obvioiusly, he is going to run again when his term expires. There is always the possibility that he won't be able to talk a popular African American or Hispanic candidate (our post-Daley mayor will certainly be one or the other) out of running, so to be safe he needs to start bringing in the money now. Let it earn some interest.
Has anyone checked with the folks in Salt Lake City about the costs involved in buying off a majority of the members of the International Olympic Committee, like they apparently did for the 2002 Winter Games? I know the IOC supposedly put in reforms to put an end to that practice, but they are probably no more ready for reform than was Paddy Bauer's Chicago. You just have to cover your tracks better than those clowns in Utah did, and God knows Daley and his cronies can certainly do that. So that is what I think the money is for.
Daley won't run for re-election in 2011. Instead, he'll sign up as chairman of the organizing committee for the Chicago 2016 Olympics. That gives him a job with a lot of glory and with fewer headaches than he has now. To stay on as Mayor until 2016 means winning two more elections, and that's not going to happen.
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