At around the same time that Alderman Ameya Pawar was blasting Governor Bruce Rauner last week, former alderman Will Burns was lighting into Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Well, not Burns directly, but Airbnb—the company he works for.
In my mind, Pawar and Burns will always be linked as the smart guys Rahm turned to in the first years of his reign, when he needed a surrogate to offer a little progressive spin on his policies.
This statement came a few days after the mayor ripped Rauner—his old business partner and wine-drinking pal—for vetoing his police- and fire-pension bill.
Yes, Alderman Pawar, I share your outrage—Rauner really is a royal ass. But it’s not as though Mayor Rahm had no hand in his creation. In some ways, Rahm is Dr. Frankenstein and Rauner is his monster. Back in the early days of the mayor’s tenure—when he was trying to position himself as the kind of Democrat that Republicans could work with—Rahm put Rauner’s wife on his transition team and named Rauner to World Business Chicago, an advisory group. That gave him the credibility to run as a bipartisan businessman who could save our state.
Soon thereafter, Airbnb began negotiations with the city over an ordinance that would regulate the home-sharing industry.
Let me tell you, as a guy who was bashing mayors long before it was fashionable, this is pretty good stuff.
