* JB Pritzker’s chaotic press conference in Chicago yesterday didn’t really make it into anybody’s actual news stories beyond a quick mention or two. But the Belleville News-Democrat used the presser as the hook for its coverage…
A day after a second debate with Gov. Bruce Rauner, and hours after a news conference where reporters repeatedly dogged him with questions about a property tax break on a mansion he received, Democratic gubernatorial nominee J.B. Pritzker said in Belleville he is working to move on past the issue. […]
“Well, we’re in the last 33 days of the election, I don’t want anybody to be distracted by the real issues that are facing working families, so we thought we would pay that money and keep moving because we’ve got a lot to do over next 33 days to make sure our message and issues are getting out there,” Pritzker said Thursday after speaking to campaign volunteers at his Belleville field office.
Earlier in the day, at a news conference where Pritzker criticized Rauner’s handling of the legionnaire’s disease issues at the Quincy Veterans Home, reporters repeatedly asked questions about Pritzker’s controversial property tax break.
“I wasn’t struggling to keep on message, we were focused on what’s happened, which is Bruce Rauner’s administration is now under a criminal probe for the death, the cover up of what happened at the Quincy veterans home,” Pritzker said.
“This is Bruce Rauner, on the attack, desperate in the last month of the campaign,” Pritzker said Thursday night before attending the annual St. Clair County Democratic Central Committee Dinner. “He’s saying anything, he’ll do anything, he’ll pretend to be anything in order to win. I don’t take it personally. We’re moving forward. We’re talking to the working families of Illinois.”
Raw video is here.
* By the way, Pritzker’s campaign manager recently explained why the candidate travels often to Downstate areas…
While two-thirds of Illinoisans live in Chicago and its suburbs, Pritzker has made it a priority to campaign downstate, which is largely Republican.
The strategy behind it is twofold, says Anne Caprara, Pritzker’s campaign manager. There are Democrats and swing voters — as well as Republicans frustrated with Rauner — downstate, clustered in the St. Louis suburbs and the small and mid-sized cities spread across the prairie: Rockford, Peoria, Decatur.
But campaigning downstate is also a good way to reassure voters worried about electing another vertiginously wealthy Chicago businessman four years after sending Rauner to Springfield. “We took a philosophy very early in the campaign that we were going to send him everywhere,” Caprara said. “And I said to him when we first sat down, I think if there’s one thing that’s going to defeat the idea that you’re not gonna work hard or that you’re just coming into this as a billionaire and don’t bring something else to the table, it’s going to be having people actually meet you.”
* Meanwhile…
Hmm. Remember when the governor said he wanted 12 debates? This wasn’t a debate, but it was a forum.
The governor is at the Northwest Herald editorial board as I write this. Click here to watch.
- Savvy in Savoy - Friday, Oct 5, 18 @ 12:57 pm:
Can’t vote for Pritzker cuz he’s too corrupt, but I sure do enjoy his ads ripping on Rauner for being a lying failure. If a pollster asks me I’ll tell ‘em I’m voting 3rd party, but I’ll hold my nose (so tight it’ll probably bruise) and vote Rauner, even though he won’t win.
- Arsenal - Friday, Oct 5, 18 @ 1:01 pm:
==Pritzker’s campaign manager recently explained why the candidate travels often to Downstate areas…==
Kudos to her for going beyond, “Because not fundraising gives us more time to do so.”
- Oswego Willy - Friday, Oct 5, 18 @ 1:12 pm:
One of the things I like about Caprara, besides her way cool twitter, is that the retail politics and philosophy she has, and goes about her business, makes running statewide more Illinois centric, when the lazy, easy way, would be to make the race “red/blue national”.
That’s my kind of thinking, and I like that premise in statewide races.
The offices and ground game commitment to that statewide movement is another way to make this statewide movement more impactful.
More Iggles tweets… please. OW
To the Post,
There still needs to be better messsging on the toilets, there needs to be an angle to want and show some closure, and prepare Pritzker to handle these questions better.
Rauner?
Unless it’s a controlled way to “image help” Bruce, Bruce ain’t attending.
Bruce wants his attacking, without being questioned.
- wordslinger - Friday, Oct 5, 18 @ 1:13 pm:
Louis Atsaves, regarding Rauner blowing off the WTTW forum, do you want to just cut-and-past your tantrum about Pritzker skipping the tronc edit board, and just replace “Pritzker” with “Rauner?”
I mean, on your deeply held principles, of course.
- Linus - Friday, Oct 5, 18 @ 1:16 pm:
Uhhh, “vertiginously”? Had to look it up. Means something close to “dizzying,” apparently.
I’ve read books n’ stuff, and I’ve never before now encountered that word. And I’ll bet I never do, again.
- Kayak - Friday, Oct 5, 18 @ 1:21 pm:
Voted early today. It’s amazing how much better I feel this afternoon after filling in one little circle. Four years of failure IS enough.
- Ole' Nelson - Friday, Oct 5, 18 @ 3:21 pm:
Northwest Herald interview pretty pathetic. Softball questions and no follow up to call out the lies. Why bother?
- JS Mill - Friday, Oct 5, 18 @ 3:34 pm:
=Can’t vote for Pritzker cuz he’s too corrupt, but I sure do enjoy his ads ripping on Rauner for being a lying failure. If a pollster asks me I’ll tell ‘em I’m voting 3rd party, but I’ll hold my nose (so tight it’ll probably bruise) and vote Rauner, even though he won’t win.=
Yeah, that Pritzker sure is corrupt. At worst he cheated on his property taxes.
Rauner, at best stood by callously indifferent, while 14 peole died and his admin tried to spin the blame. And now he is lying about it, completely concocting a response. And, he has blocked IEPA action on a business that has been poisoning people. No blind trust (which he lied about).
It’s your vote. But Rauner is objectively the most corrupt.
- Eric Zorn - Friday, Oct 5, 18 @ 5:00 pm:
Oh, pshaw, Linus, “The Vertiginously Wealthy” was the name of my punk band back in college.