28 Sep 2014

Off His Talking Points, Rauner Struggles

By Rich Miller

A quick note to Bruce Rauner: The next time you try to claim that Governor Pat Quinn is "personally" under federal investigation - an allegation that, as far as anyone can tell, is not true - it's probably best not to say it while standing next to a different governor who actually is "personally" under federal investigation.

Rauner held a relatively brief press conference last week to talk about Chicago's violence problem, with New Jersey Goveror Chris Christie at his side. Rauner attempted to claim that Quinn was somehow responsible for the murder of a nine-year-old boy by a convict on probation - even though it appears right now that all state laws and procedures were followed. And not mentioned, of course, is that Newark, New Jersey, has a murder rate almost twice that of Chicago, which undercut Christie's contention that Quinn had "failed" to protect Illinois' public safety.

21 Sep 2014

Rauner's Week of Ills

By Rich Miller

Bruce Rauner reportedly had one of those bugs that were going around last week.

Rauner didn't take any time off, and it showed. For the first time at his press conferences, he read his statements right off the page, painfully stumbling over his words.

He and his campaign also seemed grumpier last week. "Pat Quinn is not the folksy, bumbling fool he'd like us to think he is," Rauner growled on Monday. On Tuesday, Rauner's campaign barred some college journalism students from his press conference, and Rauner refused to even have a word with them afterward. On Wednesday, he turned his head and pointedly ignored a follow-up question from a Chicago TV reporter about the NFL scandals. More on that in a moment.

Maybe the recent Chicago Tribune poll that showed him trailing Governor Pat Quinn by 11 added to his physical misery. But it was Rauner's personal decision to not flood the airwaves with TV ads during the spring and summer, when Quinn didn't have the money to adequately respond. Rauner cheaped out, and now it's gonna cost him a lot more money to win this thing. So he has nobody to blame but himself.

14 Sep 2014

Democrats Learning from GOP with Message, Timing

By Rich Miller

The Illinois House Democrats launched their direct-mail and TV program weeks earlier than the House Republicans in an attempt to knock GOP candidates down before they even had a chance to stand up.

The mail started going out not long after the mid-August Illinois State Fair. Four years ago, during a national Republican tidal wave, the House Republicans preemptively launched their advertising program in mid-September, catching the Democrats off-guard. The Republicans won a few seats they might not have picked off had they started at the usual time. The Democrats learned a valuable lesson, raised a ton of money, and began their mail and TV programs even earlier.

As a result, the Republicans - who don't have much money - have been buried by hundreds of thousands of dollars in early Democratic advertising.

08 Sep 2014

Teachers' Union Endorsement Curious - but Perhaps Smart

By Rich Miller

The Illinois Education Association (IEA) has always leaned more Republican than its Illinois Federation of Teachers counterpart, but the IEA's endorsement of one GOP candidate raised a few eyebrows this year.

Conservative state Representative Dwight Kay (R-Glen Carbon) was endorsed by the IEA last month. The Illinois AFL-CIO assigns the Metro East legislator a rating of 36 percent so far this session. The Illinois Federation of Teachers, which is affiliated with the AFL-CIO, endorsed Kay's Democratic opponent, Cullen L. Cullen. The IEA is not an AFL-CIO union.

The Kay endorsement is not what you'd call an everyday occurrence. Yes, the IEA endorses a fair number of Republicans, but it's well-documented that Kay was on friendly terms with the Tea Party when he was first elected in 2010, and the IEA is not enamored with that bunch.

31 Aug 2014

Rauner's Promises Are Budgetary Fantasies

By Rich Miller

"We should have billions of dollars every year as part of our budget process ... [to] maintain and expand our infrastructure," Bruce Rauner said last week, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Rauner has been doing his best to woo the road builders all year, and he was speaking to the Illinois Farm Bureau, which has lots of members who rely on roads and bridges to get their goods to market. So I understand the practical politics of his bold promise.

But this stuff costs money. Lots and lots and lots of money. And infrastructure is only his second priority. His top priority is education funding; he wants to spend even more money on schools.

Yet Rauner says he wants to slash the state's income-tax rate. Can he really do all that with lower revenues?

24 Aug 2014

Quinn's Best Shot Lies with Minimum-Wage Efforts

By Rich Miller

Some recent Chicago Tribune poll results appear to indicate that support for raising the minimum wage in the state's largest city may be enough to increase voter turnout for a non-binding November ballot referendum.

The poll found that 84 percent of registered Chicago voters support a city-task-force recommendation to increase the minimum wage to $13 per hour over the next three years. According to the poll, 78 percent of whites and 92 percent of African Americans and even 71 percent of Chicagoans making more than $100,000 a year back the plan.

Democrats have been hoping to use the referendum - which asks about raising the minimum wage to $10 an hour - as a tool to help spur turnout in what is rapidly developing into a big Republican year. And with the Tribune's numbers backing a much higher minimum wage, it does seem likely that the issue can be effective, particularly among African Americans. Support above 70 to 80 percent is generally seen as having a ballot impact. Get above 90 and it's sure to drive votes. Then again, the comparatively "stingy" state-ballot proposal, when compared to the Chicago proposal, might garner less enthusiasm.

17 Aug 2014

Edgar Gives Rauner an Unexpected State-Fair Boost

By Rich Miller

I'm not sure why, but the surprise appearance by former Governor Jim Edgar at the Illinois State Fair's Republican Day last week didn't generate much media coverage.

Despite the fact that Edgar is a Republican, this was not an easy "get" for Republican gubernatorial nominee Bruce Rauner. I'm told it took weeks of careful wooing and negotiations through one of Edgar's cronies. Edgar backed state Senator Kirk Dillard in the GOP primary against Rauner, and he has also expressed public and private concerns about how Rauner is portraying himself on the stump and about how that confrontational attitude could manifest itself if he's elected governor.

Another reason why I'm perplexed by the lack of coverage is that Democratic Governor Pat Quinn has repeatedly gone out of his way to praise Edgar since Dillard's Republican-primary loss. Quinn consulted with Edgar before his post-primary budget address, seeking his advice on keeping the income tax at current levels and providing some property-tax relief. Quinn then mentioned Edgar by name during his actual address, saying the former governor was right to keep a tax hike in place.

10 Aug 2014

Backtracking Was the Right Move in Ford Prosecution

By Rich Miller

As you might know by now, the U.S. attorney's office in Chicago has agreed to drop all felony charges against Illinois state Representative LaShawn Ford (D-Chicago) and has charged him instead with a simple misdemeanor.

The original 17 federal counts of bank fraud and submitting false information to a bank each carried a potential sentence of 30 years in prison and a $1-million fine - meaning that Ford was essentially looking at spending the rest of his natural life behind bars for allegedly obtaining a credit line greater than his eligibility and using part of the proceeds for things unrelated to the loan's stated purpose.

The new charge of delivering a false tax return to the IRS is calculated in the plea agreement to be a term of zero to six months.

What the heck happened here?

03 Aug 2014

Quinn Campaign Spitting in the Wind

By Rich Miller

Governor Pat Quinn's new TV ad is 60 seconds of one positive message after another.

"Pat Quinn sees problems, takes action, and gets the job done," the ad claims. "Now, Illinois is making a comeback," it continues.

But the spot is being slammed by longtime campaign insiders in both parties as "spitting in the wind."

For instance, a Paul Simon Public Policy Institute poll in June found that a mere 30 percent of Illinoisans thought the state was on the right track, while a 60-percent majority thought Illinois was on the wrong track.

27 Jul 2014

Frerichs' Treasurer Campaign Beset by Gaffes

By Rich Miller

Back in January, state Senator Michael Frerichs formally kicked off his campaign for Illinois state treasurer and posted a video online touting the fact the he'd ended "free, lifetime health care for state legislators."

Actually, Frerichs had voted against that bill in the General Assembly. Frerichs' campaign had to pull the video and replace it with a new one, even though he'd been planning his formal launch for at least a year.

In April, Frerichs appeared to flip-flop on his longstanding position that the comptroller's and treasurer's offices should be merged.

Frerichs told a WBBM Radio interviewer: "People have said to me, 'Wouldn't it just be a lot more efficient if we just had one financial officer?' And I've said yes, we could become very efficient, efficient like the city of Dixon, Illinois, who just had one chief financial officer and she was able, from this small little town, over several years to take something like $52 million away from them." He was referring to Rita Crundwell, who in 2012 pleaded guilty to embezzling the money. Frerichs was quickly forced to restate his support for the office merger.

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