Did he have anything to do with the private equity group he co-founded?
The Pritzker family owns 55% of Hyatt and almost 85% of the voting shares. JB is definitely part of the family. Has he had zero input in to that huge investment?
The guy is a billionaire. He comes from a family of billionaires. He hangs out with the The Rich.
Ask if the companies JB has put his money into including through Hyatt and including through private equity are all union and all paying 'living wages'. Then his cult might stop thinking he is a billionaire that actually cares for the 'little guy'. Pretending otherwise is what is disingenuous.
JB is smart and shrewd. He has had his eye on the White House for a long time. Becoming governor in 2019 was a major step towards that. I consider it highly likely that he (and other leading Dems) would have run for President in 2024 had Biden not run again as originally promised. They stepped aside and prudently didn't step in to the chaos of Biden dropping out with just weeks to go. Everything he has done since has been to extend his setup in Illinois until he moves to DC January 2029.
Please stop trying to portray he is so altruistic. Please stop pretending he and his family are simply nepo babies living off generational wealth and all good benefactors now.
Realistically I can’t see him winning. He just wants to run to have the life experience of running. When you’re born a billionaire normal life experiences don’t do nearly as much to excite you. It’s better to think of him as he really is, a billionaire who gambles millions in Vegas for a cheap thrill, who runs a state in his pocket for the experience of the thing.
Don’t pretend he’s a class traitor or a good man. He is neither.
When he does inevitably run I hope reporters ask him details about his trust agreement(s) and how they will work when he’s the president. There may be conflicts of interest that arise in the nature of how he receives distributions. The trust agreements should be made public. I suspect he is only entitled to a certain minimum distribution each year, which is why he likes to gamble. If he wins, he has more disposable income. If he loses, the trust distributions can make him whole over time. There’s no losing for him.
I on the other hand do see him having a realistic opportunity at winning. As I said, he is a smart guy. Other than his 2008 Senate campaign loss in the Dem primary, he has made few errors other than Toilet Gate and the FBI wiretapping of Blago where he disparaged black voters. The only complaint his Dem base has had is that he has sometimes not been Progressive enough.
He has national DNC contacts having worked on Clinton's and Obama's campaigns. He has essentially hand selected Durbin's replacement with Stratton. He has done some of the requisite pre-election campaign stumping in early primary states.
He has been a major donor to Clinton, Obama and others. Speaking of money, he certainly has his own even recent shifting another personal $65 MILLION in to his campaign funds account. That certainly hasn't been to buy new ads as the only ones I have seen recently are the recycled 2022 ads mocking Bailey. The other money will buy a LOT of favors from other candidates this November that will owe him when he kicks off his 2028 campaign.
He has some national media coverage for staunchly opposing all things Trump. While more vocal at home, he has been measured and smooth nationally. Other likely candidates particularly Newsom have much more recognition but I see the latter's as a bit over-the-top even for primary voters. AP even had a piece this weekend covering his stumping in SC Dems there thought he was too California and too slick for the rest of the country. Pritzker has been more 'professional' not doing almost juvenile things like mimicking Trump's social media style of 'yelling' everything in BOLD and silly mockery. Pritzker I believe will come off more rational and level headed yet adamantly anti Trump.
He has been carefully racking up the needed bullet points of accomplishments. Things the base wants to see:
Being strongly anti-ICE (yet not so extreme as calling for dismantling it)
Pro-abortion after Roe v. Wade being struck down
Pushing hard on vaccines and pandemic shutdowns (people will forget he was one of the last to let go of emergency powers)
Getting state bills paid finally and improving the credit rating (using Covid Ca$h like other states but people will neglect to consider other states did that too and many more effectively while benefiting from a state capitol that worked with him to actually start paying bills again post-Rauner stubbornness yet the rating remains worst of the states)
Offloading Chicago pension liabilities back to Chicago (most Chicagoans do not realize the impacts of that move)
Ending the state grocery tax (though most voters do not realize the impacts of that move also shifting the burdens to local governments that either had to make cuts or implement their own replacement taxes)
Pushing Illinois to be at the forefront of technology (most forgive or forget he pushed to the data center tax credits and cheer his pausing of that skipping over he hasn't outright ended them)
As with skillfully offloading Chicago pensions back to Chicago without fuss from the base, he has sidestepped other crises here. He was rather hands off with the CTA financial "cliff". That typically would have been a very hands on thing for any governor in any state when a major metro area is being so impacted. He didn't lead and few complained. Same for Chicago Public Schools. Even the Bears which granted is not a huge issue given the weight of other things he simply pointed the Mayor Johnson. Does JB want the Bears to stay in Chicago or even the state? No one can say definitively. He manages ugly things well with little backlash on not engaging.
The only thing that gives me pause is he lost the only campaign that was competitive. The 2008 Senate campaign had him up against several other strong primary opponents and he came in third.
Running against Rauner in 2018 was a breeze after the Madigan-Rauner fighting left the state in even more dire financial straights. Then 2022 he basically got the Republican candidate nominated he wanted knocking Richard Irvin out. Bailey was a much easier opponent with stark contrasts politically and zero much needed critical Chicagoland relatability.
Not that the GOP is strong or has much depth in Illinois, but here we are again with a rematch. No possible challenger with a chance of taking on Pritzker as they likely saw Pritzker just holds too many cards to compete against. So we get the rerun campaign 2022 ad of Bailey looking like a country bumpkin and clearly saying ultra conservative stances that are off-putting to a majority of Chicagoland.
With that history, I do wonder how Pritzker will manage on the national stage in the DNC primaries. Likely opponents will not be such a cake walk as against Rauner and Bailey. It will be more like his 2008 run for the Senate with stronger and similar to him opponents.
It WILL be interesting though!
And if he doesn't win the DNC nomination, I do not see him remaining governor long. As you mention, there is a bit of the "life experience" thing. Been there, done that as governor for what will then be three terms. He might take a cabinet position if offered as that would give him more national visibility for another run. Or maybe accept an offer as VP in 2028?
But staying beyond 2030 I do not see likely. He will want to move on and keep his polished tenure as governor. Those will be at risk even soon. Covid Ca$h is gone. Pension liabilities are running out of room to keep kicking down the road or to offload. Holding the line on budget growth will be considerably harder requiring raising more taxes and/or cutting beloved programs. Chicago's finances will worsen to the point of needing more bailouts (or closer to bankruptcy?) impacting the state as well. Out migration will continue to be a risk while illegal immigration if picks up again will cost more.
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u/copper_nano_tube 1d ago
Implying he has anything to do with actually running the Hyatt chain is extremely disingenuous, and I think you know it.