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Ricketts v. Ricketts: Father And Daughter Cubs Co-Owners Square Off Over Politics

Evan McMurry
2012 Election

Poor Cubs fans. They're vying with the Astros for the badge of NL impotence, and must endure the two-year delay between when Theo Epstein takes hold of a team and when the David Ortizes start showing up (warning: Dice-Ks are waiting down the road, too).

All the while, the team's co-owners are spending lavishly—on politics. And, as if to mimic the team's futility on a larger scale, the various members of the family are funding candidates in direct competition with each other.

Today comes the formation of LPAC, the first lesbian-based Super PAC, which hopes to raise an admittedly "modest" $1 million (though it took in $200,000 on its first day alone) to fund lesbian candidates in state and congressional races. The new PAC is funded by actress Jane Lynch, LGBT figure Urvashi Vaid, tennis player Billie Jean King, petroleum executive Sarah Schmidt and Cubs co-owner Laura Ricketts, the major league's first openly gay team owner. 

That last name should sound familiar even if you've never seen a blue cap with a red C. Laura is the daughter of Joe Ricketts, the billionaire founder of Ameritrade, who has pledged tens of millions of dollars to conservative causes in the 2012 election. Ricketts père's politics have been described as half libertarian, half Rush Limbaugh [insert obligatory joke about how half of Rush Limbaugh still weighs a ton], and the Chicagoist recounts how he has become increasingly involved with right wing political causes in response to Obama's (imaginary) punishment of the rich. (The Ricketts payed close to $1 billion for a 95% stake in the Cubs in 2009.)

This election cycle, Ricketts founded the Campaign for Primary Accountability, which has caused havoc in a variety of mostly GOP primaries in Illinois, Texas, and Ohio. And not always the right kind of havoc: Ricketts's attempt to aid a Senate challenger in the Nebraska primary resulted in such negative campaign ads that it accidentally got the candidate's longshot Palin-backed opponent nominated. Then Ricketts's other Super PAC, the Ending Spending Action Fund (they're less threatening if they rhyme), had its $10 million plan to link Obama to Jeremiah Wright leaked to the New York Times. The plan was widely ridiculed across the political spectrum, and Ricketts and his son, who was also involved in the effort, quickly repudiated the race-baiting strategy.

|  Related: Why Is Billionaire Joe Ricketts Blowing $10 Million To Tie Obama To Jeremiah Wright?  |

 As her father's involvement in politics increased in response to imagined threats to his wealth, Laura's was catalyzed after George W Bush's 2004 reelection, an election fired by talk of a national amendment against same-sex marriage. Ricketts has since served on the board of Lambda Legal, which Forbes describes as "the group responsible for filing the initial suit that resulted in Iowa’s same-sex marriage win," and has been one of the most active openly-gay bundlers for Obama's reelection.

Laura has said that her father and brothers have been "unflinching" in their support of her sexuality, which is likely due to the libertarian half of her father, rather than the Limbaugh half. (If true, points to Ricketts for demonstrating that you can be fiscally conservative without being socially so; there's a political party that needs pretty constant reminding of that.)

But a potential for confrontation is already on the horizon: Representative Tammy Baldwin, who is running to become the first openly gay U.S. Senator, is said to be LPAC's primary beneficieries. Baldwin has cast her campaign "as a fight for the working class while also speaking out about saving Medicare, reforming Wall Street and embracing Obama's health care reform," a negative print of Ricketts père's worldview, libertarian, Limbaugh or otherwise.

Wisconsin is a state suddenly in play, thanks their 2010 election and ensuing kerfuffle, and GOP groups are licking their chops at a chance to both pick off congressional seats and swing the state to Romney. Expect Super PACs to bless whichever GOP candidate is chosen in the August primary with gobs of out of state money.

The Campaign for Primary Accountability's mission, of course, ends when the primaries do. But will a man whose raison d'etre has been funding congressional candidates across the midwest be able to resist going after the prime Senate races of the region? And if he comes in direct competition with his daughter's PAC, will it be like the Cubs playing the Astros: two huge, multi-million dollar efforts competing to cancel each other out?


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Follow on Ology: Evan McMurry |  PoliticOlogy

Follow on Twitter: @evanmcmurry  |  @OlogyPolitics

 

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