In today's edition of Obviously Obvious Item of the Day, the Sun-Times has come right out and quantified what everybody familiar with the Cubs' relationship with Chicago's 44th Ward has known all along: Alderman Tom Tunney gets a tremendous amount of financial backing from the good people who own the rooftops across from Wrigley. It is also no secret that those rooftop owners vehemently oppose just about any and all changes to Wrigley Field, since their entire livelihood depends on it. So it follows naturally that Tom Tunney also vehemently opposes anything the Cubs try to do to actually, you know, be competitive and make Wrigley Field a viable location to play baseball in the modern era.
Nothing about this is surprising. We've known it all along. But now we have some numbers:
That makes at least $171,356.50 in all that Tunney has received from owners of the clubs, which offer fans a rooftop vantage to see Cubs games.
That’s nearly 10 percent of all the campaign money the North Side alderman has raised since he ran successfully for his first Chicago City Council term in 2003, according to a Chicago Sun-Times analysis of campaign-finance records.
Rooftop club owners have given another $15,675 to Tunney’s Democratic organization in the 44th Ward, which includes Wrigley.
The Cubs have also contributed to Tunney:
The team and its executives also have contributed to Citizens for Tunney — a total of $16,750 — though they haven’t opened their checkbooks to him lately. The last time was in October 2010, when the team sent a $1,500 check.
So the Cubs are being outspent in the political clout arena by more than 10-1 margin and they wonder why they have to jump nine million bureaucratic hoops every time they want to replace a trough.
“I’ve been trying to be as fair and balanced as I can be,” Tunney says. “It’s my job to manage the relationship between Wrigley and the community.”
Uh huh. Let me get out my bullshit translator and see what we have here: "I'm more than willing to be fair and balanced, but since the cash is pretty lop-sided, it makes it pretty darn difficult to not be lop-sided in my positions towards the views of those who give me more money."
Tommy needs to take a lesson from his father, who clearly has no qualms at all about trying to rig elections or sway support in his favor by paying for it.
Already fueled by two high-profile endorsements, Republican Senate candidate Deb Fischer headed into the home stretch Saturday empowered by a weekend TV ad blitz engineered by mega-wealthy businessman Joe Ricketts.
Two new ads began airing in the critical Omaha and Lincoln markets, one attacking Attorney General Jon Bruning's ethics and the other boosting Fischer as "one of us."
The $180,000-plus buy immediately prompted the Bruning campaign to file a complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging "a clear violation of federal election law," which forbids campaigns and outside groups to coordinate their communications.
Joe has gone so far that he's going to have the FEC on him for having his Super PAC coordinate with a campaign. Joe Ricketts has clearly embraced Super PACs and their political power. He's donated lot's of money to existing Super PACs to get try to get what he wants:
J. Joe Ricketts, an online-brokerage billionaire, gave $500,000 to the Campaign for Primary Accountability, which seeks to find fresh blood for politics.
He's also started his own Super PAC in 2010:
…called the Ending Spending Fund, which just put nearly $600,000 into the Nevada Senate race against Majority Leader Harry Reid (D). The "taxpayers" against earmarks is actually just one man named Joe Ricketts, founder of Ameritrade and owner of the Chicago Cubs, who is also the sole financier of the Ending Spending Fund.
I spent about 5 minutes on the Google machine and already have Joe Ricketts down for almost $1.3 million in campaign contributions to support his interests and I didn't even find the article I thought I remembered from a year or so ago that involved him flexing his wallet in a political race. He needs to school Tom on the finer points of getting shit done when the only real obstacle in the way is money. Tunney has said about as clearly as a politician can say without saying it that his support can be bought. He might as well have said he was waiting for his friend, Mr. Bribe McKickback, to show up at his door.
Tunney's loyaties lie where the money is. He has a terrible poker face. Everybody at the table knows when he's holding a full house. Lest we forget his big opposition to the Toyota sign as “not in keeping with the character of the neighborhood or the spirit of the landmarks designation," but he had no problem with this classy sign outside the ballpark:
The difference now is we know exactly how much it costs to buy Tunney's support.
Comments
This guy gets shit done.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
He might as well have said he was waiting for his friend, Mr. Bribe McKickback, to show up at his door
(dying laughing)
BerseliusQuote Reply
Rice Cube wrote:
(dying laughing)
jtsunamiQuote Reply
Where’s my taste?
Grafty Von PayolaQuote Reply
E-mail sent mb. Hopefully it makes sense, I’m kind of multi-tasking and I threw it together pretty quick. I can add more to it if you want.
WaLiQuote Reply
In another act of blatant heavy-handedness:
Aisle424Quote Reply
My skills aren’t good enough, but can someone replace the woman with Alvin?
Aisle424Quote Reply
@ Aisle424:
Is that Dean Martin? If not, why?
uncle daveQuote Reply
Is that Harry Caray?
Suburban kidQuote Reply
pretty badass:
http://www.livescience.com/20299-viruses-harnessed-create-energy.html
EnricoPallazzoQuote Reply
Bubbles and his MB broke up…
Bubbles======> Back to the market place
bubblesdachimpQuote Reply
@ Suburban kid:
I would believe it. Apparently Harry was quite the lady’s man.
joshQuote Reply
Suburban kid wrote:
That is Harry. Circa 1978 apparently. Someone at SI dug it up and claimed Harry was hitting on a Cubs fan at Wrigley even though he’s pretty clearly at Comiskey and those are Sox fans. (Which is even more obvious since he worked for the Sox in 1978.) But I still think it would be funny if it was Alvin on his cell phone instead of the woman.
Aisle424Quote Reply
This is really good, 424. It would be nice to see Tommy spend some money to get shit done and maybe he will down the road. Surely he’ll hear about how to get shit done from his father.
mb21Quote Reply
mb21 wrote:
I can’t believe they’re getting outspent more than 10 to 1. That is ridiculous. The Trib might have thought they could push Aldermen around through the use of their editorial section to save money, but the Ricketts have no excuse at all to not be cozying up to Tunney. He’s standing there like the doorman in The Jeffersons who was always waiting with his hand out for a tip and the Ricketts are flipping him a nickel and telling him not to spend it all in one place.
Of course I wish that everything was being decided by what was best for the neighborhood and everybody within it, but the reality of the situation is that money talks and the neighborhood is the only one doing any of the talking. I don’t know what Julian Green is doing since he’s the one who is supposed to know how to operate within the Chicago machine, but lesson one probably should have been, “Get friendly with Tunney, and by friendly, I mean give him money through every legal channel possible.”
Aisle424Quote Reply
@ bubblesdachimp:
mb suggests you don’t call your next girlfriend Main Bitch. Just a thought.
mb21Quote Reply
@ Aisle424:
If he’s not going to be giving him money, which I’m somewhat OK with, he should be be attacking Tunney in other ways. Cubs.com is operated by the team. Use it for whatever advantage you can. The easiest thing to do is just give the asshole money and then when he’s up for reelection you back his opponent and give that person a shitload of money to win.
mb21Quote Reply
@ Aisle424:
I think the Ricketts want to try the “good neighbor” approach as much as they can before they give up and say “fuck all you guys, we’re doing what we want and you can’t stop us”…
Rice CubeQuote Reply
Rice Cube wrote:
I could have saved them the time and effort 2 years ago by telling them that would never work. The people in that neighborhood are fucking delusional and they found a guy who is willing to go to bat for them every day. His last memo said that the Cubs should be paying for renovations to the CTA Red Line stop at Sheridan as part of whatever package they end up getting. I almost fell out of my chair.
Aisle424Quote Reply
@ Aisle424:
Well, you know how the Ricketts are…it took them almost two seasons to realize that Jim Hendry wasn’t the answer and they needed a rebuild, although that could’ve just been due diligence 😀
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ Aisle424:
BTW, that Red Line addendum reminds me of the episode where Krusty is a Congressman and used the “paper clip” rule to get his bill passed.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
If they had just given Tunney about $250K when they first got here, I bet they’d have their government money and we would have already seen at least one phase of the renovation well underway, if not completed.
Even if they had to wait it out until a less prickly time to hand it over (like now as opposed to the height of Illinois’ economic woes), they could have gotten the Toyota sign without it being the end of the world and probably a lot more advertising and maybe even their street closure stuff to generate more revenue in the meantime. But instead they’ve spent the last two years getting nowhere.
Aisle424Quote Reply
I’m not even in favor of giving them the damn money, but since they are hellbent and determined to get it that way, they could at least be competent in their methods to get it.
Aisle424Quote Reply
I mean, isn’t this a pretty big area for Crane Kenney to fuck up? This is probably 10 times worse to the health of the overall organization than the Soriano contract. They are passing up tens of millions of dollars per year because they can’t get along with the local hall monitor (who is pretty blatantly for sale).
Aisle424Quote Reply
mb21 wrote:
The problem with that is if you square off against Tunney you risk him turning around and spinning it to tag “Anti-gay” on the Cubs. The Ricketts have Laura to deflect that, but they also have Pete who campaigned on a platform of being anti-gay marriage and it wouldn’t surprise me to find a money trail from Joe supporting a similar cause. When you consider that it doesn’t matter if its true or not to be damaging, the Cubs brand gets nailed hard and they’ll really have everybody in that neighborhood against them.
Aisle424Quote Reply
@ mb21:
Troof that is for sure. Its weird being single… :-/ She was pretty good. Even went to wrestling with me
bubblesdachimpQuote Reply
bubblesdachimp wrote:
Are you sure she’s a she?
mb21Quote Reply
@ Aisle424:
I would think they could go ahead and do it without that happening as long as they didn’t back someone who was anti-gay. If they found someone more willing to give the Cubs what they want who works for gay rights that would solve that potential problem.
mb21Quote Reply
WaLi has written a fantastic piece we’ll publish later tonight about the advantages/disadvantages for Soriano using a lighter bat.
mb21Quote Reply
@ mb21:
Yea she was 100% a she
bubblesdachimpQuote Reply
@ mb21:
True. If they back the right candidate it could work. It would also have to be a local business person to counter Tunney as the owner of Ann Sather’s. That way they can’t get painted as carpetbaggers either.
Aisle424Quote Reply
No Beltran in the Cards lineup tonight.
Aisle424Quote Reply
Cards lineup:
Furcal ss
Jay cf
Holliday lf
Craig rf
Berkman 1b
Freese 3b
Molina c
Schumaker 2b
Westbrook p
Aisle424Quote Reply
@ bubblesdachimp:
Otherwise she would have been your main bastard.
Suburban kidQuote Reply
Cubs /Quade’d:
DeeJ RF
Campy CF
Cassie SS
Hairy 1B
Sori LF
Stewie 3B
Sote C
Barn 2B
Demp P
Aisle424Quote Reply
Junior Lake is killing it
ABQuote Reply
@ AB:
He’s had a huge game. 2-2 with a double and a home run and 3 walks.
mb21Quote Reply
That’s 7 walks on the season and only 5 strikeouts. Transformed!
mb21Quote Reply
I wonder why the hell today’s game starts at 6:05. Did St. Louis secede from DST?
BerseliusQuote Reply
@ Berselius:
Um, the Cubs do that on Monday nights sometimes too.
Suburban kidQuote Reply
@ Suburban kid:
You tell him!
mb21Quote Reply
@ Berselius:
ESPN
ACTQuote Reply
preview up
http://obstructedview.net/previews/short-series-preview-for-a-short-series.html
BerseliusQuote Reply
@ Aisle424:
THIS. I’ve been beating this drum since Tommy Boy took over. Things get done one way in Chicago.
@ Aisle424:
What else can Kenney fuck up before he gets shitcanned? Firs the stupid priest stunt, then he gets put in charge of the public money boondoggle and shits the bed, so they turn that over to Julian Green, and now we find out that Mr. In Charge of the Business Side of Things forgot to fulfill Priority Number One when dealing with Chicago politicians, i.e. grease the palms of the local bosses. WTF?
Mercurial OutfielderQuote Reply
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