I am one of 13 million or so people in the state of Illinois who along with another few hundred million around the country and perhaps the globe, are watching in horror and fascination at the saga unfolding around the state’s (for the moment) leader and Governor, Rod Blagojevich.
In case you’ve missed the news for the past few days because you’ve been out holiday shopping or lobbying congress to bail out your finances, the Governor was arrested on a variety of conspiracy charges, not the least of which was that he appeared to believe that he could use his appointment power for the newly vacated senate seat of President-elect Obama to secure money, jobs, money and jobs for his wife, a cabinet appointment, a 501C3 Charity to be funded by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, and so forth.
Oh yeah, if he didn’t get what he wanted, he was going to appoint himself to the vacant Senate seat, a right that is within the Governor’s power. To say that this man has a slim hold on reality is putting it mildly.
If you’ve followed this story, you’ve undoubtedly heard or read the transcripts of the wiretaps on “Hot Rod” as he has been called, indicating how he was going to use his power for gain. The profanity strewn conversations, several of which have his wife in the background joining in and strewing profanities on top of her husband’s colorful language.
Rod was also going to use his power to fire editorial members of the Chicago Tribune, block the sale of the Cubs by Sam Zell, and fill his campaign coffers for a run at the presidency in 2016. Again, slim hold on reality.
Growing up in the state of Illinois and around the city of Chicago, one gets used to rough and tumble politics. The Chicago machine is perhaps not as visible and powerful as 30 or 40 years ago, but still very much quietly in control in the City that Works.
Governors in Illinois don’t have a good track record. Rod has been charged, although he showed up for work today with his usual perfectly coiffed hair and that stupid frozen smirk on his face. Our last Governor, George Ryan, is in jail right now for corruption. As a teenager during the seventies, I remember watching as former Governor, Dan Walker, famous for having walked across Illinois, took one last jaunt, a Perp-Walk in handcuffs.
Well, we are the Land of Lincoln, so we have one great leader to our credit. Now we’re the Land of Obama, and people around the country and world are hoping that he follows in Lincoln’s very deep footsteps. If ever the U.S. needed a citizen of Illinois to stand up and do a great job, it is now. Just as long as that citizen has not held the Office of Governor.
Due process will play out. Rod will go to trial and have his day in court. Maybe he’ll go to jail…or maybe he will fade into the sunset as another leader that lost his grip on reality, forgot that leadership was not all about him and tried to grab as much as he could grab and thought that he was invincible.
Lousy leaders are great teachers. Grab a front row seat here in Illinois and get ready to feel outraged at how low a leader can go. Remember to file this chapter under “leadership approaches almost certain to earn a new orange suit.”
Why Competition is So Great and What Chicago Needs to Learn
After losing major conventions to different venues, the local politicos and the brass that run McCormick Place in Chicago are back-pedaling so hard in defense of their labor and service costs that they are contributing to the wind velocity in this already “Windy City.”
It is shameful to watch the officials and local union leaders attempt to defend or deny their usurious pricing and their strong-arm tactics. If you’ve been involved in setting up a show on the floor at McCormick Place before, you would be flabbergasted to listen to the union official on the news blatantly denying that exhibitors are bullied and denied simple things like the right to put a plug in an outlet without union help.
Bull!
I’ve been on the receiving end of having an employee mistakenly plug in a device only to have the union workers complain…stop work and call over a union official to give the booth manager heck. Additional fees were incurred and the service went from bad to really bad.
Another year, same incident…slightly worse outcome. There must be something about plugging things in when you work for an electronics company, but yet another well-intentioned employee crossed the union line and was observed pushing a plug into a receptacle. Same union crap storm followed by a week of suspicious, intermittent power outages and shockingly slow response times. (OK, that was a bad pun!)
The defense from McCormick Place, “These are the industry standards.”
In another example: “The sticker price of soda aside, it’s the labor costs at McCormick Place that rile most exhibitors. One exhibitor at the recently departed Health Care Information show said the electrical services bill in Chicago reached $40,000. In Orlando, the same work costs $4,000.”
Mayor Daley’s response: “McCormick Place has had a difficult chore in getting and keeping shows unless they get their costs down. It’s as simple as that,” said Daley.
In true Chicago fashion, the head of the Union responds, “We’ve stepped up.”
Keep stepping, buddy.
The Bottom Line:
It’s a big competitive world out there and the good news is that businesses and in this cases marketers and convention-going firms have options. If I’m Orlando or Vegas or any one of a dozen other venues, I’m all over the Chicago-conventions that have had enough of the expense abuse.
Sad for Chicago in the short-term, but maybe good in the long-term. A big dose of competition and a shock to the system will either result in the right improvements or things will just deteriorate. There are few venues that can offer the menu that is Chicago for a conference destination. Here’s hoping for a great response. After all, we’ve solved the Governor-picking problem…errr, I mean the sales tax problem….err…. . Oh heck, I hope we fix this one.
Good for free enterprise. Now if only there was an airline (aside from Southwest) that gave a crap about customers. But that’s another rave for another day.