Rauner’s rainbow pitch off target
It’s about the company you keep.
Illinois GOP gubernatorial nominee Bruce Rauner wants minority voters to know they are in good company.
His opponent, Gov. Pat Quinn, is exquisitely reliant on the minority vote. If Rauner can chip away 10 or 15 percent of that base, Quinn is sunk. That’s why Rauner has plowed beaucoup buckeroonies into slick TV commercials burnishing his image as a friend to the hoi polloi.
“He will follow through on every promise he has made about education,” says Lula Ford, an African-American woman in one Rauner ad.
“It’s a beautiful thing,” says Cornell Nelson, an African-American from Chicago’s South Side. In another spot, Nelson praises Rauner’s support for a homeless shelter.
Rauner’s rainbow pitch has stirred a backlash among some prominent Democrats. He may be keeping company with minorities in his commercials, they say, but not at his old company.
They point to the website of GTCR, the private equity firm that made Rauner multi-millions over many years. In 2012 he stepped down from the helm of GTCR to prepare for his gubernatorial run.
The elegant web site displays the GTCR “team” of top executives. Of the 42 professionals pictured, there appear to be one Latina, and two people of Asian descent. African-Americans? Zilch.
Marty Castro, chairperson of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and a Quinn supporter, questions Rauner’s commitment to diversity. “You look at that leadership team and you see zero African-Americans, one Hispanic?” Castro recently said to reporter Charles Thomas of ABC-7.
Rauner acknowleged the deficit in a May 17 ABC-7 interview. At GTCR, “we were frustrated,” he said. “We weren’t finding the folks. They weren’t there.”
Rauner’s campaign has noted that he chose a Latina, Evelyn Sanguinetti, to run with him for lieutenant governor. Well, that’s one. John W. Rogers Jr., the prominent chairman and CEO of Ariel Investments, told ABC-7 that he is neutral in the governor’s race but isn’t buying Rauner’s explanation.
He may keep company with minorities in commercials, but not at his old company.
I have been covering diversity issues for as long as Rauner has been pulling in the big bucks. The “just can’t find good people” line is a hackneyed and tired excuse.
A 2004 article published by Private Equity International painted a glowing portrait of GTCR’s prowess at recruiting top executives for its companies.
“The firm has established what may be the private equity industry’s most elaborate, intensive process for vetting and recruiting CEOs to run GTCR’s aggressive buy-and-build plays,” the news service reported. The 2,600-word piece, “The CEO Seducer,” detailed GTCR’s aggressive recruitment strategies, including inviting job prospects to Rauner’s exclusive “cigar room,” stocked with top-ofthe-line scotch.
“We have a unique ability to identify executives well before they even think they are interested in being identified, bonding with them, and then being enjoyable, personal partners for them,” Rauner was quoted as saying. “We’re fun to work with.”
Rauner, the news service added, “describes a vast network of corporate recruiters and individual headhunting contractors.”
I guess people of color aren’t enough fun.
Bruce Rauner wants to govern Illinois. He aspires to assemble a leadership team to run and represent a racially and ethnically diverse state.
Yet, this hugely successful businessman could not find diversity in his own back yard.