Illinois paints black hat on ComEd

I don’t think ComEd had bad intentions when it offered the Illinois legislature $500 million in recession assistance this week to balance the budget, but, apparently, the state of Illinois, the state attorney general and a lot of the representatives thought ComEd evil incarnate for even making the proposal.

The whole snafu is really a problem with assumptions---and, as you might recall from the old grade school adage, one becomes a bit of a patootie when one assumes. But, how did this clever, interesting PR and business concept from ComEd go so horribly wrong in such a short amount of time?

Let’s start with ComEd’s assumptions. What did they do wrong? They assumed this offer would be taken at face value. I understand their point, really. It’s basic logic. The state of Illinois is having serious economic difficulty. We can help out with that and, in addition, guarantee ourselves that this recession won’t cut heavily into our own coffers with this offer of a cash influx for a bit of a “in the black” rate guarantee. In their world, that’s a “win-win,” one might say. However, this offer spawned a lot of black visions they didn’t really count on---not in terms of positive revenue but in terms of inferred villainous thoughts.

What the utility didn’t seem to count on was the assumption on the part of consumer groups, state regs and the general government that this offer was the tip of a large iceberg. ComEd never cross-applied the current, angry “anti-big-business” recession mindset to themselves; they never saw that coming. And, to be fair, I don’t think ComEd intended to “Goldman Sachs” the heck out of the Illinois people, but they really should have seen that mindset forming miles down the road, given the state of the economy.

Here’s the bottomline, ComEd: You’re a big business. Right now, Americans hate big business. Additionally, power is something they need. You don’t mess with the basics (even in theory) when the basics are all the people can count on. We may not be able to spend on a new car, but we can at least watch “Billy the Exterminator” each week on A&E as a luxury. Don’t mess with my Billy time (even just in theory). Finally, you offered a concept that’s very different, very new and very unusual. New, different and unusual usually translates, on first glance, as ‘scary.’ The psychology behind this has a lot of problematic layers.

So, no, I don’t believe that ComEd was looking to bait a consumer trap with this cash influx, but the state attorney general and those pesky consumer groups pounced on those assumed problematic layers. They painted ComEd as an electric Mephistopheles looking to benefit on the state’s economic problems with a signed-in-blood devil’s contract and every single consumer would be playing an unwitting Faust in this scenario. And you know what happened to Faust, right?

Is that true? Most certainly not. There’s more than a tad bit of paranoia in that scenario. But, if it bleeds, it leads, as they say in this business---and an assumption like that makes a rather staid story of a potential public/private contract so much more juicy. So, the assumers bled that story good and dry until there was nothing left for ComEd to do but yank the offer off the table and walk away before they disappeared under the growing, giant black hat that had been foisted on them.

In America, we have an odd relationship with business. On the one hand, we want it to thrive. We deregulate, moan about investments, deregulate again---all on the hopes that the perfect competitive market will form and make business a darn good deal. We love the idea of business. On the other hand, even though we cater to businesses, we don’t trust them---especially after the economic issues of the last few years. We don’t see businesses as trying to help the greater good; we always assume that any offer from the business world comes with heavy, waxy strings. We hate the idea of business.

It was those assumed strings---which really didn’t seem to exist in reality---that killed the ComEd offer. It wasn’t a bad concept. ComEd could have gotten some assurances and played the hero. The budget could have gotten a bit of a nice cash influx and moved a bit forward in trying to close that gap in the economy. But, in the end, our human fallacies and our very human suspicion killed that deal before anyone gave the possibilities a chance. Would it have worked? Who’s to say? The state of Illinois lit the structure on fire before they even got a good, long look at the wood. It might have been a Frankenstein; it might have been a friend. We’ll never know.