New Yorker profiles Pritzker
Wednesday, Oct 18, 2023 - Posted by Rich Miller
* I was interviewed for this New Yorker profile of Gov. JB Pritzker. The reporter covered some familiar ground, but he had stuff in here I didn’t know or didn’t quite absorb, like this bit about how Pritzker’s inherited wealth has tripled…
Money has long opened political doors for Pritzker. He inherited $1.3 billion and roughly tripled it, then poured a hundred and seventy-one million dollars into his first gubernatorial campaign, in 2018, and at least a hundred and forty million more into his reëlection. When he flies on state business, he charters a jet and pays for it himself. He tops up the salaries of senior aides and maintains a paid political staff on the side. These days, he is showering contributions on Democratic candidates and, especially, organizations that seek to advance abortion rights. Next year, he will host the Democratic National Convention, which he helped lure to Chicago with assurances that the event, which is expected to cost ninety million dollars, wouldn’t take on any debt, and that Illinois would provide a complimentary backdrop for the Party’s message. At fifty-eight, Pritzker has left little doubt that he will spend whatever it takes to achieve his political ends. A Democratic strategist told me, “I think everyone in the political world in Illinois is thinking about the fact that he has Presidential ambitions.”
* The governor has told me off the record about this brutal focus group…
Given Rauner’s troubles and voter anger with Trump, he decided to try again at electoral politics. But could a wealthy Jewish investor from Chicago win statewide against the deep-pocketed Rauner, who had made his own fortune in private equity and beat a Democratic primary field that included Christopher Kennedy, a son of Robert F. Kennedy? At one early focus group, Pritzker watched from behind a two-way mirror as nine of ten participants said that they preferred Kennedy. “When I walked in the door, I thought it was going to be hard,” he recalled. “When I walked out, I thought it was going to be harder.” But Pritzker had virtually unlimited resources, and he concluded that running was “not a ridiculous endeavor.”
* Sad details about the death of his parents…
Pritzker has an abiding faith in what government can accomplish, especially for those who need it most. He traces this to his parents, Donald and Sue, who were dynamic and, as it turned out, doomed. Donald Pritzker, along with his brother, Jay, turned a single hotel near the Los Angeles airport into the prosperous Hyatt chain. Donald was gregarious, “somebody people loved being around,” Penny Pritzker, J.B.’s sister, a former U.S. Commerce Secretary, told me. He was the finance chairman of Edmund Muskie’s Presidential campaign and likely would have run for office one day. But, in 1972, visiting Hawaii to open a new Hyatt, he died of a heart attack while playing tennis. He was thirty-nine.
For his three children—Penny was thirteen, J.B. was seven, and a brother, Anthony, was eleven—the next decade was tumultuous. Their mother suffered from alcoholism, and her addiction deepened after Donald died. She was frequently in and out of treatment. In the mid-seventies, she served as the Northern California women’s chair for the state Democratic Party. (Penny recalled Nancy Pelosi coming by the house to help Sue stuff envelopes for a Senate candidate.) During the worst stretches of Sue’s illness, Pritzker told me, he would sometimes bike to the house of one of her friends to spend the night, just to get away. More frequently, he stayed awake at home, constantly checking to see if his mother had again fallen asleep in bed while smoking. Several times, he called 911 because she had passed out. In May, 1982, Sue was driving drunk when her Cadillac broke down. She called a tow truck. As she and the driver were hauling her car to a garage, she jumped from the truck’s front seat, hit her head, was run over, and died. Pritzker, away at boarding school in Massachusetts, was on his own. He later said that life as an orphan means carrying “a sense of being robbed. Grief ebbs over time, but it never stops stealing a piece of your joy in the moments when you deserve to be happiest.”
Go read the rest.
- JS Mill - Wednesday, Oct 18, 23 @ 11:06 am:
When people think being wealthy is easy, take a look at JB’s life and then see how he came through it. He has turned into a person of substance and, regardless of whether or not you agree with his politics, he has turned into a public servant. He spent his own money on campaigns and covers his own travel.
Contrast that with another wealthy guy that has turned political. Very, very different.
I like our governor and the job he is doing for Illinois.
- Yellow Dog Democrat - Wednesday, Oct 18, 23 @ 11:44 am:
As most parents know, you don’t stop being a parent at age 18. Your kids keep depending on you emotionally, one way or another, for the rest of your lives.
That’s why researchers found that men who lose both of their parents before age 50 - not age 18 but age 50 - have an average life span that is a full ten years shorter than the rest of their census peers.
Losing both your parents dramatically increases your risk of suicide, accidental death, and related conditions such as heart disease.
Pritzker will never get to share the joys of parenting with his parents, or get to ask their advice, or be able to lean on them to remind him that he has strength to overcome any obstacles life sets in his path.
I have no doubt he’d hesitate not a moment to trade all his wealth and office to have his parents back.
And I am willing to bet that the folks who mock him for his weight or his wealth probably couldn’t walk fifty yards in his shoes, let alone a mile, let alone five decades.
- Nick Name - Wednesday, Oct 18, 23 @ 12:02 pm:
As with Joe Biden, personal tragedy seem to have deepened Pritzker’s empathy, rather than embitter him.
- Pragmatist - Wednesday, Oct 18, 23 @ 12:12 pm:
In a time of extremism and ugly rhetoric, America needs more advocacy for good, humane policy backed by big bucks. This work is in JB’s wheelhouse. He has the money and is a likable and decent person. Bravo.
- JS Mill - Wednesday, Oct 18, 23 @ 12:29 pm:
This also stood out to me…
=“I don’t see how you can argue that emphasizing the twenty-six per cent who are liberal is going to be more effective in gaining the votes of the seventy-one per cent who refuse that label.”=
I do not consider myself a “liberal” in the current political context. But I do in the context of classical liberalism as practiced and espoused by the likes of Jefferson and Locke. And that is not in conflict with my more conservative views.
My point… I am exactly the voter that has moved away from the ILGOP as they have engaged in culture wars as pretty much their lone platform.
The majority of Americans whether R or D support reproductive rights. Same goes for some gun control measures. Same goes for gay marriage and rights. Pritzker is more progressive than me, but he certainly lines up with much more of my center right position than any state republican since Edgar and JBT.
- Lucky Pierre - Wednesday, Oct 18, 23 @ 12:29 pm:
26% of the electorate identifies as liberal but JB’s governs, and uses his hundreds of millions in ads to assume 100% do
Probably the biggest reason he polls barely above water in a deep blue state
How does chartering a jet from Peoria to Quincy square with his green agenda?
- Dotnonymous x - Wednesday, Oct 18, 23 @ 12:31 pm:
The more I know about Pritzker, the more I like him.
His vulnerability is his strength.
- Rich Miller - Wednesday, Oct 18, 23 @ 12:49 pm:
===How does chartering a jet from Peoria to Quincy square with his green agenda? ===
From the article…
This summer, I joined Pritzker on a jet that he chartered to Peoria, and then to Quincy, downstate, in a more conservative part of Illinois, where Democrats traditionally fall short. (A publicity-minded aide pulled me aside to report that Pritzker had paid for carbon credits to offset the trip.)
- Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Oct 18, 23 @ 12:50 pm:
===Probably the biggest reason he polls barely above water in a deep blue state===
Rauner got thumped. Bailey got thumped.
Beat him.
- Demoralized - Wednesday, Oct 18, 23 @ 12:56 pm:
@LP
He won handily. Twice. Apparently they weren’t that turned off by it. Your side lost. Stop whining about it and figure out a way to win if you don’t want to be ignored
- Flyin'Elvis'-Utah Chapter - Wednesday, Oct 18, 23 @ 12:56 pm:
“Probably the biggest reason he polls barely above water in a deep blue state”
Yet he whupped the last two GOP candidates like rented mules while running the table on all other state offices.
Welcome to Lucky Pierre World, up is down, black is white, and Tuesdays come in twos.
- Lucky Pierre - Wednesday, Oct 18, 23 @ 12:56 pm:
So hypocritical that green offsets are ok for liberal billionaires to assuage his progressive guilt for never flying commercial, but he wants to mandate electric vehicles for everyone else.
- JS Mill - Wednesday, Oct 18, 23 @ 1:00 pm:
What OW said x2. All of it.
=and uses his hundreds of millions in ads to assume 100% do=
No he does not. He clearly has an agenda and has largely stuck to it. Being an intelligent person he knows that many people disagree. Be he is dedicated to his cause. I respect that. I respect that his causes are not looking to hurt people. I cannot say the same for some of the folks that he defeated. Soundly. Twice.
- Rich Miller - Wednesday, Oct 18, 23 @ 1:02 pm:
===wants to mandate electric vehicles for everyone else===
Link?
- Thomas Paine - Wednesday, Oct 18, 23 @ 1:03 pm:
===Probably the biggest reason he polls barely above water in a deep blue state===
OW summed it up well.
Politics is a game of addition.
Not everyone who agrees with JB on Reproductive Rights agrees with his position on criminal Justice reform.
And the same can be said about Cannabis, Union Rights, Immigration, etc.
But JB understands that building a winning coalition isn’t about agreeing with every single issue with every voter. That’s how Republican politics work, but not Democratic politics.
Republicans demand you agree with them on abortion, guns, immigration, crime, LGTBQ, Trump, and so on.
Democrats and independents only really care if you agree with them in their number one issue.
This why in order to win the GOP base, you usually end up losing the majority in Illinois. The exception is criminals like Blago or Quinn, who turned his back on labor.
- Captain Obvious - Wednesday, Oct 18, 23 @ 1:19 pm:
Carbon credits do not undo damage to the environment. They are available for rich hypocrites to feel good about themselves and look good to ignorant fellow “environmentalists.”
- Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Oct 18, 23 @ 1:34 pm:
(Tips cap to - JS Mill - and - Thomas Paine -)
To the post,
Emotional loss, and family tragedy, is never offset by any amount of wealth because tragedy changes a person, it shapes and orientates where a loss can make a person inside never find peace.
So much of the takeaway is the humanizing of a human, and it is serving a purpose not because “elites” read the New Yorker or it’s self absorbed for Pritzker’s self importance, it’s a piece that should remind us all, the readers, we never know what others have been through, experienced, or even been changed by… the human experience is far different than bank accounts, it’s what we bank in our own histories that guide our futures.
- Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Oct 18, 23 @ 1:41 pm:
- Captain Obvious -
So you must have an electric vehicle(s) solar panels, never fly, take a diesel train, or your hypocrisy to own a lib is only more silly than your mouth breathing to it.
- Dotnonymous x - Wednesday, Oct 18, 23 @ 1:47 pm:
@L.P.
Finding nothing but fault is caused by heart failure.
- Demoralized - Wednesday, Oct 18, 23 @ 1:53 pm:
==So hypocritical that green offsets are ok for liberal billionaires==
And out comes the victimhood . . . again.
- Demoralized - Wednesday, Oct 18, 23 @ 1:56 pm:
==to ignorant fellow “environmentalists.”==
So it’s ignorant to be concerned about the environment? You are the reason we should all be concerned because there’s too many people out there like you who think we shouldn’t be concerned at all.
- Who else - Wednesday, Oct 18, 23 @ 2:19 pm:
===wants to mandate electric vehicles for everyone else===
I had no idea about this mandate. It’s almost like it doesn’t exist.
- City Zen - Wednesday, Oct 18, 23 @ 2:31 pm:
==Pritzker had paid for carbon credits to offset the trip==
Offsetting emissions does not undo them and pretty much every environmental group across the board is skeptical of the practice. His preferred method of transportation could not be more out of sync with his stance on climate change.
- Ares - Wednesday, Oct 18, 23 @ 2:40 pm:
Our greatest leaders have overcome crushing losses in their lives, from George Washington and his armies being ambushed at Ft. Duquesne, to Abraham Lincoln losing his parents at a young age and his child in the White House, to Teddy Roosevelt losing his wife and mother in a single day, to FDR suffering a devastating disability, to JFK surviving the sinking of PT-109.
- Gravitas - Wednesday, Oct 18, 23 @ 3:18 pm:
The story is a trifle incomplete. The family wealth from hotels came much later.
The original source of the family fortune came from practicing law. Initially, the Pritzker law firm specialized in criminal law. Some notable clients included some notorious Chicago hoodlums.
Later generations of lawyers shifted into tax shelters.
- levivotedforjudy - Wednesday, Oct 18, 23 @ 3:55 pm:
I know folks who don’t like JB because he inherited his wealth like he could control it, but if you think about what he did with it I immediately think of The Holocaust Museum and 1871. That is good enough for me. (I didn’t realize he tripled it - WOW).
- Davison - Wednesday, Oct 18, 23 @ 4:12 pm:
Some staffer gets kudos for a nice puff piece in a national magazine.
But let’s be honest here. Pritzker is where he is because he cut a deal with Madigan that was all about money and Madigan retaining his power in the House and state party. That’s the same Madigan who goes on trial soon for federal racketeering charges for conduct related to his efforts to retain power in the House and state party.
- Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Oct 18, 23 @ 4:26 pm:
=== because he cut a deal with Madigan that was all about money and Madigan retaining his power in the House and state party. That’s the same Madigan who goes on trial soon for federal racketeering charges===
Then that was a really great deal, and Madigan “himself” walked away (with the help of 19 others) and Pritzker then won a second term.
To be frank, your dissertation that you think is a hit is really a compliment of sorts to politics and vanquishing a liability without taking the heat for doing it.
Oh… it’s Speaker Welch now, a state party run by Pritzker, and the likelihood of “letting a street crew running a valuable asset in town” is now way gone, along with Madigan
It’s Pritzker’s show now.
- Yellow Dog Democrat - Wednesday, Oct 18, 23 @ 5:27 pm:
=== But let’s be honest here. Pritzker is where he is ===
Let’s be honest here, Pritzker is where he is because he was the strongest candidate against Rauner. What Madigan cared about was beating Rauner, 100%.
Chris Kennedy also tried to run as The Self-Funder until Pritzker got in.
Based on 2014, Madigan along with the entire Democratic establishment believed that money was the key to beating Rauner.
You know who else believed that? Republicans.
Remember, “I cant be outspent” was Rauner’s argument for why he should be the candidate in 2014.