I have a friend, Kevin, who likes to swim with sharks…for real. Kevin is a manly man. He hunts, he fishes, he dives, he motorcycles (on road, but especially the hardscrabble off-road type). He keeps horses and rides in fox hunts (is that even legal?) and owns several farms where he likes to drive his heavy equipment around and move earth and shit from one place to another. On one farm he owns in northwestern Illinois, he has planted 300,000 trees over 30 years, participating in programs presumably sponsored by the USDA or perhaps Interior for the reforestation of America. He tells me he gets the trees for free and then has to plant them himself, which he does with great relish since he gets to play with his heavy equipment and gets something for nothing from the government. If you ever need a guy to help you work out or fix a trailer hitch, he’s your man. I have in fact used him for just that purpose uncle or twice and he makes sure to remind me that he owns 22 trailers of one form or another at his various farms. Kevin made his money trading oats on the Chicago Board of Trade, so he sort of comes by this “Farmer Joe” status of his somewhat honestly. I can’t really call him a gentleman farmer since he regularly gets in there and gets his hands dirty actually doing the work, though I suspect he employs a reasonable number of hands to help him on the farms since he can’t be in all places at once. Kevin is far more right of center in his political beliefs than I am, but I know his lovely wife Karen and I sense that she understands that the real Kevin is a good man who insists on wearing a cloak of tough independence to make sense out of his farming and sportsman lifestyle. His anti-government rhetoric is a product of living in Illinois for many years (he now splits his residences between Florida (the horse country part of Wellington) and Darien, Connecticut (not exactly a MAGA bastion).
Kevin feels that his home town of Chicago and all of Illinois has been ruined by the string of corrupt Democratic politicians who infected the state for so long. Yes , indeed both Illinois and Chicago have a long, well-documented history of political corruption, and specifically the “Democratic Machine” era has a fairly clear start date. Chicago’s corruption dates back to the city’s incorporation in 1833 (an election where more votes were reportedly counted than there were residents), and for decades it was bipartisan, both Republicans and Democrats ran corrupt machines competing for power. The Democratic Machine started in 1931, when Anton Cermak won the mayor’s race becoming the first in an unbroken stream of Democratic mayors since then. Cermak’s machine evolved into the Kelly machine of the 1930s, and the most dominant and well-known version, the “Daley Machine”, didn’t emerge until the 1950s. Richard J. Daley served as mayor from 1955, holding the Cook County Democratic Party chairmanship simultaneously until his death in 1976, and his tenure is widely cited as the peak (and worst excesses) of machine-style corruption with plenty of patronage, vote fraud, and organized crime ties. It wasn’t always one-sided with the Democratic Party… Chicago’s earlier 20th-century machine was actually Republican-run under “Big Bill” Thompson (mayor 1915–23, 1927–31), who was Al Capone’s man in City Hall and was later named the worst mayor in American history by a historians’ panel.
At the state level, it’s bipartisan too. Illinois governors convicted of corruption include Democrats Otto Kerner and Rod Blagojevich (the guy Trump famously had as a guest contestant on The Apprentice) and a Republican (George Ryan). So it wasn’t exclusive to one party even though Chicago itself has been Democratic-controlled continuously since 1931. One of Kevin and my mutual pals (from motorcycling) is Bruce Rauner. Bruce was a big-time private equity guy in Chicago (GTCR) who I met and did business with in that connection 25 years ago. Bruce ran, won and then served as the 42nd Governor of Illinois from 2015 to 2019 (one term). He lost his re-election bid to the current governor, Jay Pritzker. Bruce is a Republican with a well connected Democrat for a wife. As for corruption, his tenure stands out as relatively scandal-free on the personal-corruption front, especially compared to his predecessors. He actually campaigned on ending corrupt practices, citing reforms like strengthened ethics disclosures, closing the lobbying revolving door, and ending the illegal patronage hiring associated with Blagojevich and Rauner’s predecessor, Pat Quinn. That said, his administration wasn’t free of serious problems…just not the bribery/pay-to-play type corruption Illinois is known for. His administration struggled with the Quincy Veterans Home Legionnaires’ outbreak, a deadly Legionnaires’ disease outbreak at a state-run veterans home in 2015, which killed multiple residents. This was characterized as mismanagement/negligence rather than corruption. Then there was a record-long budget impasse, a two-year stalemate with the Democratic legislature (no full budget passed for over two years), which caused major damage to state services, universities, and social programs, largely attributed to a power struggle between Rauner and House Speaker Mike Madigan… but nothing to do with graft. It was Madigan’s federal investigation (ComEd bribery scandal) that dominated Illinois corruption headlines during and after Rauner’s term, not Rauner’s own administration. Unfortunately, his governorship is generally remembered more for the budget gridlock and governance failures but at least NOT for corruption and graft.
We’ve traveled a lot with Bruce to places like Spain and Turkey on motorcycle trips, so I think its fair to say that we’ve gotten to know him pretty well. Given the size and importance of Illinois as a political hub in America, Bruce has been in the thick of American politics on the Republican side of the aisle during the beginning of the red wave which still envelopes the country to this day. I think he’s out of those shark-infested waters at this point, but I find it fascinating to talk to him about things having to do with the conservative/liberal balancing act that the world always undergoes and is certainly in the midst of now. When I hear people with my own liberal leanings tell me that they have disassociated themselves with many of their red ex-friends, I find myself thinking that’s a shame. I like debating Bruce on the topic of whether collectivism is a good or bad thing for mankind (a conversation we have had more than once). I like fencing with Kevin, even in his irreverent way, because, as they say, even in and amongst all the horseshit he likes to shovel my way, there is, occasionally, a pony.
Kevin told me today that he is going to Colombia (a place that Trump’s pal Abelardo de la Espriella just narrowly won the presidential election) to scuba dive and swim with sharks at Malpelo. Malpelo is a remote, uninhabited Colombian island in the eastern Pacific Ocean, about 300 miles off the mainland coast. It’s most famous for two things: world-class scuba diving (renowned for huge schools of hammerhead sharks, along with silky sharks, whale sharks, and massive groupers), and as a UNESCO World Heritage Site (designated in 2006 as the Malpelo Fauna and Flora Sanctuary, recognized for its exceptional marine biodiversity). There’s only a small Colombian naval garrison stationed there to assert sovereignty and protect the marine reserve from illegal fishing. Access is tightly restricted, mainly to licensed dive expedition boats and Colombian military/scientific personnel. Remind me to tell Kevin to be careful when he’s zooming across the ocean to a dive site to make sure that he leaves his stash of cocaine at home, least some Pete Hegseth warrior gets overzealous and wants to take the body count of presumed illegal traffickers up a notch. Stick to swimming with sharks, Kevin and I’ll keep swimming with a few of you Republican sharks while you’re at it.