Though planned around a fundraiser for Republican gubernatorial candidate Judy Baar Topinka, much of President Bush’s trip to Chicago on Thursday and Friday was spent with local business leaders.
Bush had dinner Thursday, his 60th birthday, with Mayor Richard M. Daley, exchange leaders, chamber directors and corporate executives. Breakfast Friday included executives from some of Chicago’s biggest companies–many of whom were not certain why they received invitations to meet the president.
Those asked to breakfast received their invitations Wednesday, while dinner guests received their calls Monday.
“I really don’t have any idea why they selected me,” said William Moffitt, chief executive of Northbrook-based Nanosphere Inc., a tiny firm on the cutting edge of nanotechnology. His comment was echoed by nearly all.
In addition to Moffitt, Brunswick Corp. Chairman and CEO Dusty McCoy, Kraft Foods Inc. new Chief Executive Irene Rosenfeld and Martin Slark, vice chairman and CEO of Lisle-based Molex Corp., joined Bush for breakfast at Lou Mitchell’s restaurant, a Chicago institution on the Near West Side.
Besides Daley, those at Thursday’s birthday dinner were: Greg Baise, president and CEO of the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association; Charles Carey, chairman, Chicago Board of Trade; Terry Duffy, chairman, Chicago Mercantile Exchange; Larry Ivory, chairman and CEO, Illinois Black Chamber of Commerce; Juan Ochoa, president and CEO, Illinois Hispanic Chamber of Commerce; John Rowe, chairman, president and CEO, Exelon Corp.; and Gerry Shaheen, chairman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a Caterpillar Corp. group president.
While the executives knew they had been invited, they didn’t know their destination.
Bush’s dining partners were directed to meet at a Chicago hotel, where the Secret Service loaded them into vans for the trip to the not-so-secret hideaways where the media was encamped.
Even the selection of the company Bush visited Friday was cloaked in mystery.
“I received a phone call last week from the White House asking for the names of some manufacturers where they could take the president. They said they needed a manufacturer in the Loop,” said Baise, a former Republican candidate for state treasurer. “I suggested that might be difficult because there has not been a manufacturer in the Loop for more than a century.”
Instead, Bush traveled 40 miles west to Aurora, where he visited Cabot Microelectronics Corp., located in the home district of House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), and reiterated his support for the American Competitiveness Initiative. The plan is a $136 billion, 10-year effort to invest in research and development, education and entrepreneurship.
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“[He was] very friendly, very easygoing, not really what I expected. He was on a tight schedule, but he was very friendly,” said Tiffany Bettis, 33, of Aurora, a research associate at Cabot.
“He actually spent a little bit of time talking about what we were doing,” said Bettis, who develops smaller-scale but more-advanced batches of polishing slurries that help in the manufacturing of semiconductors and data-storage devices.
At the meals, executives said, they had a welcome chance to explain to Bush problems they are facing.
“A lot of the discussion was on education: How it’s a key to keeping the country strong, what the mayor has done in Chicago, and what the president has done with No Child Left Behind,” said the CBOT’s Carey.
“He also talked about immigration. He wants a reasonable solution. But it’s an election year. We’re in gridlock until after November.”
“He was actually looking for an exchange of ideas,” said Brunswick’s McCoy. “He was very good about asking questions and very good about answering our questions.”
Still, the meals appeared to have succeeded in the White House’s effort to get Bush out of Washington.
“This was one of the more incredible events of my life, and I came away mightily impressed with the president,” McCoy said.
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