Bill Daley and Bruce Rauner to run a unity ticket for Illinois Governor?

Millionaires Bruce Rauner and Bill Daley.

Somebody jokingly tweeted the other day that millionaires Bruce Rauner and Bill Daley were going to run a unity ticket for governor.

Like Superman and Clark Kent, they may be the same guy.

As the joke goes, have you ever seen them together at the same time in the same place?

Sneed says Rahm not-entirely secretly backs his best friend Bruce Rauner.

But I don’t know.

Even Republican Ron Gidwitz who is the fundraising chair for Rauner loves Daley.

“My dream would be Rauner versus Daley,” Mr. Gidwitz says. “We would have a great contest and the state would be the winner,” he told Crains.

Like his GOP alter-ego Bruce Rauner, Bill Daley never ran for public office before.

Instead he peddled his name and influence right up to the line of legality. Or at least he wasn’t caught.

Back in 1997, the Tribune reported his close ties to convicted Chicago Congressman Dan Rostenkowski:

Daley was known for his close ties with Rostenkowski, who was chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee before ethics problems cost him his seat in 1994 and a subsequent guilty plea on corruption charges sent him to prison.

“He was very saddened for Danny. There was a very strong relationship. He was a combination friend and mentor for Bill,” said Joseph Cari, a Chicago attorney and Democratic Party fundraiser.

The Daley-Rostenkowski relationship frequently involved business too. Beginning in 1986, for example, Daley lobbied for two insurance providers incorporated in Bermuda on tax matters pending before Rostenkowski’s committee.

His clients, called the Attorneys’ Liability Assurance Society and the Accountants’ Liability Assurance Society, are groups of U.S. lawyers and accountants that formed cooperatives to buy insurance at low rates.

Federal records provide a glimpse of the behind-the-scenes work that was Daley’s specialty, albeit in lawyerly language.

“On May 25, 1988,” reads one disclosure form, “William M. Daley . . . appeared in person before Rep. Daniel Rostenkowski (and) . . . sought to influence Rep. Rostenkowski to include a provision in pending tax legislation that would have the effect of changing the tax treatment of offshore captive insurance companies.”

The problem for us is that with Quinn performing as the most anti-union governor in half a century, and the Republican primary filled with Tea Party look-alikes, Illinois working people will face a tough four years no matter what the outcome next year,.