Joe Ricketts, whose family owns the Chicago Cubs, is moving forward with plans to bankroll a major ad campaign to help Willard MittRomney
...former governor of Massachussetts, currently the Publican nominee for president. He is the son of the former governor of Michigan, George Romney, who himself ran for president after saving American Motors from failure, though not permanently. Romney has a record as a successful businessman, heading Bain Capital, and he rescued the 2002 Winter Olympics from the midst of bribery and mismanagement scandals. More to the point, he isn't President B.O...
and Republican candidates.
The Wall Street Journal reports today that Ricketts will spend $12 million on ads starting this week, with $10 million to back Romney and $2 million to assist Republicans running for Congress.
The ads funded by Ricketts will feature ex-Obama supporters talking about Romney, a tactic that Romney used on his own in a video played at the GOP convention in Tampa. The WSJ says the ads will run in battlegrounds such as Wisconsin, Ohio, Virginia and Iowa.
It's unclear what impact the new pro-GOP ad campaign will have on the Ricketts family as it seeks to get the city of Chicago's help in renovating Wrigley Field. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, an Obama friend and the president's former chief of staff, has refused to negotiate with the baseball team's ownership since word of Joe Ricketts' anti-Obama ad plans were published in the spring.