This just feels insane, for so many reasons: Hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin just gave $20 million to the campaign of Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner of Illinois, a fellow billionaire who is running for a second term next year. Let's talk about why this is so nuts.
- A $20 million donation is legal? It is, unfortunately, because of Illinois' perverse finance regulations. Just how perverse? Get this: Illinois does theoretically cap campaign contributions, but those limits are lifted when one candidate in a race self-funds heavily—including for the self-funding candidate! That means Rauner was able to open the door for Griffin's monstrous gift by giving his own campaign tens of millions of dollars. This is lunacy.
- When you give someone that much money, you're trying to buy them, period. That's disgusting.
- Rauner, as noted, is incredibly rich (reportedly worth around $1 billion) and has already dumped $50 million of his own money into his re-election bid, on top of $45 million for his 2014 campaign. He can afford to spend as much as is humanly necessary. Why does he even need Griffin's money?
- And here's what may be the sickest part of all of this: Griffin, who's worth $8 billion according to Forbes, wouldn't shell out this kind of cash unless he thought he'd get a good return on investment. That means he thinks that whatever policies Rauner pursues would benefit Griffin's own bottom line by even more than $20 million, perhaps much more. He's a Wall Street guy, after all—he's not looking to merely break even.
With such a massive concatenation of money on the Republican side, it makes sense that some Democrats, including labor unions, are starting to rally around yet another billionaire, J.B. Pritzker, who noted that Griffin also recently gave $100,000 to Donald Trump's inaugural committee. It's unfortunate that Illinois politics is turning into a battle of the billionaires, but there may not be any other way for Team Blue to avoid getting drowned in Rauner’s and Griffin's money.