VOTED OUT OF OFFICE, STILL STAYING OUT OF JAIL.

Former Illinois governor Bruce Rauner, who might have been turfed out in the 2018 response to Donald Trump, engages in a wide-ranging interview with a Dartmouth alumni magazine.

Indeed, if Illinois had been a business, a lot of managers might have declared bankruptcy and started over.

The state had one of the largest unfunded pension obligations of any state—roughly $110 billion. Illinois’ credit rating had sunk to the worst in the nation. A deepening budget hole had left billions in unpaid bills. A steady population decline was accelerating while neighbors such as Indiana, Wisconsin, and Iowa were enjoying population growth. Financial analysts called Illinois the worst-run state in America.

Campaigning for the office—his first venture into elective politics—Rauner had a casual, everyman style, riding to events on a Harley and boasting that his beverage of preference was beer. Still, he ran on the premise that his business acumen could rescue the situation, and his message was strongly anti-tax and anti-regulation, an agenda that faced daunting obstacles in the heavily blue state. On Election Day he narrowly beat the Democratic incumbent but still faced Democratic majorities in the state assembly. “If we work together, Illinois can be great again,” he promised in his inaugural speech.

That didn’t happen. Rauner battled constantly with Democratic legislators, a conflict that left the state without a budget for more than two years. He fought so hard for financial reforms that even some in his own party turned on him. The state’s credit rating approached junk status. His talk of endemic government corruption and his attacks on public-sector unions made hard-wired enemies. Over his opposition, the state’s income tax rose.

As my colleague David Smyth would say when somebody griped about a provost or dean, "his successor will be worse." Indeed so.  "Not long after, Rauner sold his principal Illinois home, a Winnetka mansion, and spent more time at his out-of-state residences. In 2020 he voted in Florida."  There's a lot of that going on these days.  The problem is, in politics well-intentioned novices have to deal with a lot of careerists and grifters.

Today Rauner splits his time evenly between business activities and philanthropic work. But he emerged from government service with insights on the fraught state of American politics and—even though he estimates he spent $150 million on the effort—doesn’t foreclose the idea of going at it again. “If good people don’t get involved in the process,” he says, “bad people run it with bad outcomes.”

His home state’s dire financial condition led Rauner into the political arena. “I got very concerned about government regulations and taxes that were pushing businesses out,” he says. By his account, the business community urged him to run and, after declining twice, he took the matter to his family. “We talked about it around the dinner table, all six of the kids, debating if Dad should run for governor,” he says. Several of his older children warned he would face “a nightmare” of attacks. “Daddy, I don’t want you to go to jail,” said his youngest daughter, 13 at the time.

The former governor is still optimistic about electoral politics, particularly if the partisans could trim toward the median voter. "[Term limits and nonpartisan redistricting], he thinks, would ease the path for centrist politicians to regain power from the extremes."  On paper, perhaps; reality might be more stubborn.