A political player's metamorphosis

David Wilhelm, top outside adviser to Gov. Rod Blagojevich, says he filed paperwork to give up being a registered lobbyist and plans to sell his ownership in Wilhelm & Conlon, a public affairs consulting firm. Quitting politics? Hardly. Still boyish at 47, Mr. Wilhelm is actually ascending to a higher and more elite rank of political operative, one who gives advice informally and reaps personal financial rewards from long association with elected leaders. Mr. Wilhelm has long wanted to launch a venture capital fund aimed at downtrodden areas of the Midwest, not easy to do with his modest business credentials, essentially two years rounding up municipal finance business for Everen Securities in the mid-1990s. But since the 2002 election, in which he served as Blagojevich campaign chairman and later headed the newly elected governor’s transition team, he raised more than $25 million from public pension plans controlled in part by gubernatorial appointees.

Politics, Mr. Wilhelm says, “is in my blood. I’m sure I’ll do some fund raising and advising” on a volunteer basis. “I’ll be a business leader in politics.” Mr. Wilhelm calls himself “a born-again capitalist,” raised Methodist, who now knows his fund won’t be “doing anybody any favors if we don’t hold ourselves and our strategy to the test of the marketplace.”

Mr. Wilhelm’s fund is expected to close its first round of financing soon at about $130 million, with about $43 million from the pension funds and other investors matched 2-to-1 by the U.S. Small Business Administration. The fund plans to become a federally licensed Small Business Investment Company (SBIC), which will enable it to draw up to $100 million in federal financing.

Institutional investors had earlier balked at Mr. Wilhelm’s vision of untapped investment opportunities in Southern Illinois. His idea goes back to the mid-1990s, after his return to Chicago from a two-year stint as the youngest-ever chairman of the Democratic National Committee and presidential campaign manager for Bill Clinton in 1992.

He revamped the idea in April 2002, shortly after the Illinois gubernatorial primary, broadening its focus to the entire Midwest. Mr. Wilhelm also recruited four professional investors with over 80 years of combined venture capital and buyout experience.

I'm keeping track of the Clinton Alumnae Association. Don't you think that 47 is a little young to be an elder statesman? I think that he's latched on to a free lunch machine.

In another area, Eric Holder has been brought in to investigate the Casino deal here in Chicago. He's being paid $300,000 to find corruption in Chicago.

2 posted on 04/04/2004 7:40:20 AM PDT by glock rocks (Only YOU can stop fundraisers. Small monthly donations from each of us can do it !!)

There is something I can't quite put my finger on about why this is really disturbing to me.

Doesn't the broker of a deal reap a 2% fee for services? Or some such figure for arranging the packages?

Since this is a fund, I imagine that he will get a management fee. The bigger issue here was that a former government official-turned-lobbyist is now investing money that comes, to a large degree, from taxpayer funds. You can't tell me that this fund will make investments according to strict economics. I wouldn't put a penny into that pig.

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