Last fall Governing magazine published a survey of America’s first-year governors. Most were doing well, but two were “struggling.” One struggler was Nebraska’s Pete Ricketts, the other was our own Bruce Rauner.
You might suppose Illinois would chew up Pete Ricketts and spit him out, but his family history suggests something different.
I asked managing editor Shamus Toomey about DNAinfo’s biggest accomplishments, and he sent me an interesting list. It ranged from Mark Konkol’s trailblazing coverage of the Jackie Robinson West Little League scandal to Tanveer Ali’s imaginative data-visualization projects—such as this one that lets readers draw their own Chicago neighborhood maps. I had to wait a couple of days for this list—when I asked for it last Thursday, Toomey and his staff were tied up trying to cover the sextuple murder in Gage Park. So I watched DNAinfo, the Sun-Times, and the Tribune battle it out online. Toomey’s reporters held their own.
Now it’s our state that’s hitting rock bottom, and maybe the Ricketts could run that better too. If Tom Ricketts wins a couple of pennants this year and next, and then runs for governor as a well-intentioned alien, he could be hard to beat. One problem with our state that’s become obvious to everyone is that it’s in the hands of people who learned their politics in Illinois.
