35 Comments - Truthteller - Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 9:33 am: Rauner continues to talk out of both sides of his mouth. Is he pro-choice or anti-choice? Pro-gay marriage or opposed to it? Is he for pension reform for police pensions, or not? For more state spending on early childhood education or not? Does he live in Wilmette or in Chicago? - Demoralized - Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 9:41 am: So he’s also an “outsider” but he’s spending a lot of time getting to know the legislative leaders over the last couple of years? - wordslinger - Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 9:44 am: “You have radio down here?” - John A Logan - Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 9:50 am: Rauner is trying to say all the right things, but he is just not cut out for this. You can feel that in his comments. Rauner believes he can fake it till he makes it. When I think of Rauner I think of the old western movies, with the fake building facades. If you willing to suspend disbelief you can follow the plot line. If you are not willing to do that, its hard to watch. - Oswego Willy - Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 9:54 am: “I’ve spent a lot of time getting to know the legislative leaders over the last couple of years… I even asked them ‘What is “your price” for numerous things …” - Oswego Willy - Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 9:56 am: “Just tell me when we are going to start recording … oh … we are …” - foster brooks - Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 10:00 am: It looks like Rauner has a slight disagreement with Schimpf on pension reform too. Lol - Oswego Willy - Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 10:01 am: “I am going to shake up the Bulldozer in Springfield and Bring Back pizza for everyone …” - Darienite - Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 10:02 am: ==When I think of Rauner I think of the old western movies, with the fake building facades.== Kind of like Blazing Saddles. Maybe Rauner can get enough fake people to vote for him. - Dan Johnson - Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 10:05 am: Great example of how the anti-all-public-investment view of some of the financial players in Chicago run into the fact of lots of Republican primary electorate support for Amtrak and higher speed trains. It’s worth remembering that Senator Brady and Senator DIllard (the top two candidates in the 10 primary) were outspoken in support of passenger rail investment as particularly important for Downstate while Mr. Proft, the most aggressive anti-high speed rail candidate, came in dead last. - Obamas Puppy - Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 10:07 am: The ego is a powerful thing. - Downstater - Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 10:07 am: More dribble drabble from Oswego Willy. Never a positive comment about anyone in “his party”. Which party is that? - Norseman - Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 10:08 am: Darn, someone caught him taking a position, no wait he hasn’t studied the issue. Great leadership fellow. He’s good at attacking boogeymen, but he is rather shallow when asked about how address real issues. - Eugene - Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 10:11 am: Rauner is going to shake up Springfield - and guess what is going to fall out? More insider deals for his big money friends, just like the ones he engineered for himself. - Oswego Willy - Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 10:11 am: - Downstater -, I have posted about Leader Durkin, I have Posted about Comptroller Topinka, I have praised Mr. Sandack, I gave encouragement to Chairman Dorgan … Read. Learn. and stop making it about me. With kindest personal regards, you Dope, I remain. Sincerely yours, Oswego Willy “I even plan on slumming it in the Mansion, but if i Have to again, I will move back to Chicago and clout another child, just so everyone is clear …” - Jimmy - Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 10:14 am: I’m not sure if Rauner knows much else besides counting money. - Gathersno - Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 10:22 am: Jimmy - what other qualifications does one need to be elected? - Bill White - Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 10:25 am: There is an old folk tale that ends like this: === First, I never borrowed your pot; Second, I returned your pot a long time ago; Third, the pot was already broken when I borrowed it. === This is what happens when you try to say different things to different people. - Finally - Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 10:33 am: Downstater- Thank you for finally saying what many think in that Oswego says a lot but little of actual substance. - Oswego Willy - Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 10:39 am: Well, I don’t think I am going anywhere soon. If you learn, don’t learn, …. you might not be my target audience, ever think about that? We are all guests here, guests of Rich. I never forget that. - Watch your feet - Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 10:46 am: *Rutherford botches petitions AGAIN. *Dillard votes for Cosgrove saying even with 20 years in politics he didn’t know who cosgrove was, and then says he models himself after Joe Walsh *Rauner makes it even more obvious he has no message or any idea what he is doing. Brady is the only one who hasn’t shot himself in the foot recently. What a field of candidates. If Oberweis gets in the senate race this will be very entertaining. - hisgirlfriday - Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 10:47 am: Besides the constitutionality, wouldn’t forcing everyone into a 401(k) force the state to pony up for social security? Also, I find Bruce’s comment that because other people have 401(k) plans that means state workers should too. What was Bruces retirement package from GTCR? I’m guessing it was a bit more lavish than your average teacher or Springfield secretary and not just a 401(k). - Oswego Willy - Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 10:48 am: “I heard the mansion needs repairs and safty things, so I am going to send Evelyn there, to walk around. Evelyn is real good at seeing things, but noit reporting them, or not seeing thngs, and not reporting them, I just hope Evelyn has a nice Trip, she might be a fixture at the Manison next … Fall.” - Norseman - Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 10:57 am: Raunerbo has his troops a stirring trying to defend his lack of specifics by attacking poor Willy. Instead of whining, if you don’t understand what Willy says, skip his comments. Rich doesn’t force you to read them. If you disagree, try putting some insightful comments together in response. The problem with the Illinois GOP is that the powerbrokers do not understand or don’t want to listen to the messages that Willy and so many others have been espousing to reinvigorate the party. In my opinion, the party has been taken over by the darkside and I and many others I know can’t call themselves Republicans any more. The party of my father and most of my adulthood is gone. Willy has chosen to stay and try to encourage change to make the party relevant again. To the Kool-Aid drinkers, they don’t want to hear Willy’s efforts. - Oswego Willy - Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 10:57 am: === *Rutherford botches petitions AGAIN. *Dillard votes for Cosgrove saying even with 20 years in politics he didn’t know who cosgrove was, and then says he models himself after Joe Walsh *Rauner makes it even more obvious he has no message or any idea what he is doing.=== Add Brady have about $16.32 in his account, and everyone wants me to have “Happy” posts? If you are a member of the ILGOP and you are watching what is going on in My Party and think, “Boy, that Oswego Willy is so negative, there is plenty of good, why focus on the small, itty-bitty negatives?” Can’t get petitons right …. Statements making any og them easy to paint “too extreme”… One of Rich Daley and Rahm Emanuel’s donors of the six-figure nature… Ridiculously “unqualfied” LG choices… And I am the “bad guy”? Plus a possible candidate at the tippy-top that can taint everyone with “pitchforks and torches”, intolerance and a “must” of 100% purity for My Party … Either look at what is going on in the realm of reality, or get pummeled again, and then try to be even more “pure” becuase you can’t have enough “purity” … in a POLITICAL Party. We are off the rails, and not the high speed rails … and those not willing to see that, are not ones to help get us back on track. If you are ignorant to what is happening, how do you expect to be someone to fix it? - Rich Miller - Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 11:10 am: ===If you disagree, try putting some insightful comments together in response.=== We’re getting way too many drive-bys attacking another commenter without offering anything of substance. Those comments will be swiftly deleted in the future. If you wanna comment here, then add something to the debate. Drive-bys are a no-no. - walkinfool - Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 11:12 am: Rauner is caught between two sets of messages: what his campaign advisors are insisting he say to the GOP primary base, and what he really believes might work. A common rookie problem — slider or fastball? - Oswego Willy - Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 11:18 am: - Norseman -, Thanks for understanding. You are not just a fine sticler designer. To the Post, I remember alot of advice that was given to the RGA staffer brought in to help Rauner, and one piece of advice in particular is starting to be ignored more and more. Rauner needs to remember, what is heard in Cairo, will be talked about in Chicago, and what is said in Alton …will be picked up in Zion. Up, down, A-Z, all the media markets… when a Candidate for Governor speaks, and is considered noteworthy, that soundbite, that clip, that subtle nudge of a position … is magnafied. Can’t be different in all places and seem the same when the voters decide. Also …. Sam/Frank … - Bill White - Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 11:50 am: === A common rookie problem — slider or fastball? === Kirk Dillard ain’t a rookie. What’s his excuse? - Oswego Willy - Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 12:01 pm: I have a question, how will Rauner, who now “knows” these legislators he speaks of, and wants to “Shake up” Springfield, and Rauner says the Illinois Governor has a great deal of power to do thinks without the legislature, and … My Point? If PPC Rauner need to learn more about how Illinoi Government works, and Rauner needs to work with the Legislature, and Rauner feels he can go around the Legislature, and add to all this the “term limits” issue, where is Bruce Rauner going to find a partner in this? Has Bruce Rauner seen how Pat Quinn is treated by Cullerton and Madigan? Does PPC think he is going to be treated … better .. than Pat Quinn, even with one…. ONE “mea culpa” that workig together is probably a good thing? Pick a lane, pick a story and stick to it, and stop polling about what buzz words are working, because unless you are this Dopey with this all-over-the-place governing idea, you must be polling words and phrases, and some are now counter to the Narrative that got you to commit to the race to begin with. You one problem is your fatal flaw, Bruce Rauner; You can’t just run as you are, because if you just ran as who you are, you would have had to have chosen another Party to run in a a candidate, and if you expose yourself to being an open book, the voters wil close that book and move on. It has been questioned here a bit and I backed off, but I guess i wil join those voices today; When you tuirn in those petitons, wil you show those tax returns? What ….address … will those returns show? Chicago? Winnetka? I would be very interested, right out of the box, tax returns with that Winnetka address, with the Clouted Denied Daughter going to a Chicago school… Hmmmm. That would be a tasty treat to start off, “living” in Chicago, tax return from Winnetka, house all over the country … and the monies made … off Pensions. Tax returns … it’s not “political baloney” in Illinois … its Steak …red meat, actually … that gets devoured if its tasty. - Wowser - Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 12:30 pm: And the crowd at the coliseum chants “tax returns, tax returns!!” Lol - ZC - Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 12:38 pm: Rauner is taking justly-deserved hits for keeping his views to himself, but I do get it… In general the public has a decent tolerance for flip floppers. In the first place they just have come to expect it naturally. In the second if a guy is a flipper, that means there’s always an outside chance he’ll flip in your direction. In 2011 the Obama camp flirted with going after Mitt Romney as vague and lacking any core convictions. They ultimately dropped it as a tactic, deciding it wouldn’t get the job done, and went after Romney as a vulture capitalist who put working men out of work. That’s still Rauner’s vulnerability. If he can get through this primary (as Romney wasn’t) largely fending off any claims he’s fatally out of touch with every day Illinoisans, then he did pretty well. This vagueness thing will come back to bite him if he actually wins and then has to start rapidly disillusioning … someone. But I actually think it’s a mild handicap as regards the election. - Oswego Willy - Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 12:40 pm: - Wowser -, We are at the “gates before entering the coliseum”, at this point of the campaign. Remember when Brady and Plummer ran 3 years ago? It has been that way for quite some time. It ain’t new, except to those not expecting to face it. It is part of the game if you want to play. Rauner will , no doubt, face it in the General Election. Pat Quinn is going to release his, so that will be out there… if PPC gets that far, so Rauner might as well take the heat now … maybe from a Winnetka Tax Return… A very wise move for the other 3 would be to release their returns the day they file petitions … keeps the heat on PPC from Day 1 of the filing …Quinn would release too I would guess if Rauner beefs about it. Going to be … F.U.N. - Chicago Publius - Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 1:44 pm: “High-speed rail” is the code name for corporate welfare, in which the State of Illinois and the U.S. Government literally give Union Pacific Railroad millions and millions of dollars to improve UP’s private property - that is, UP’s own railroad. In theory, this corporate welfare is needed so that Amtrak trains can go sliightly faster - except that, under the agreements among IDOT, Amtrak, and UP, there is no requirement that UP give any enforceable guarantee of Amtrak’s ontime performance. In other words, Illinois, via IDOT, gives UP money; UP spends the money to improve its private roads, so that those roads have more capacity to carry faster and heavier freight trains, operated by UP. Amtrak’s trains can go faster as well - but nowhere near the 220 mph ‘high-speed trains’ of Europe and Asia - and with no assurance that those Amtrak trains will travel on time between Chicago and St. Louis. - OldSmoky2 - Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 2:56 pm: What Rauner and other knee-jerk opponents of high-speed rail ignore is that countries stay atop the economic pile by keeping up with and leading technological advancement. No country’s history illustrates that better than our own. In one way or the other our government played a major role in providing funding and research for technological advancements in the automotive industry, energy industries, aircraft industry, communications industry and more. Heck, the Internet we’re using to do things like this was a U.S. government invention. And yet now we are on the sidelines watching as Europe and Asian countries invest in high-speed rail as a superior transportation system that spurs economic development and raises standards of living. Should there be constraints on how much our government spends? Sure. Should our construction of those constraints lead us into economic and technological decline? No. We need smart government spending, not the cut-government-spending-at-all-costs political populism of opportunists like Rauner. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.