31 Comments - William j Kelly - Tuesday, Feb 25, 14 @ 12:49 pm: Rauner has given $500,000, that we know of, to iPi and that’s the best john shillman can do? - VanillaMan - Tuesday, Feb 25, 14 @ 12:49 pm: Populist? Try short-attention span. Pat Quinn has been a gadfly in Illinois politics since he showed up about forty years ago. He has flitted from one issue to another and rarely focusing on completing any task. Once an issue loses the spotlight - Pat moves onto a new issue that he finds an interest in. This is why he has had an on-again, off-again political career with an on-again, off-again level of public support. Pat Quinn isn’t an excellent populist, he is a nice backbencher with a severe need for Ritalin and for a public office. - Demoralized - Tuesday, Feb 25, 14 @ 12:59 pm: The IPI continues to demonstrate it is anything but non-partisan. - LBJ - Tuesday, Feb 25, 14 @ 1:06 pm: Really? The same people who brought us the recent bill in Arizona, Willie Horton ads, phrases like “welfare queens” and “cut and runners”, swift boating of outstanding military records, etc, etc do not “divide people, driven by resentment and bitterness based on false narratives”? That’s funny. it really is. - Anonymous - Tuesday, Feb 25, 14 @ 1:10 pm: Populists build coaltions around popular issues, concerns and ideas which empower the general public - Norseman - Tuesday, Feb 25, 14 @ 1:17 pm: Does the old saw about the pot calling the kettle black come to mind? - Eugene - Tuesday, Feb 25, 14 @ 1:23 pm: Projection isn’t really an art. It can be either a psychological defense mechanism, or a rhetorical tactic. In this case I’d say it’s probably both. - Carl Nyberg - Tuesday, Feb 25, 14 @ 1:24 pm: The Right Wing of US politics takes money from the 1% to sell White people that they should blame various groups (Blacks, Muslims, immigrants, single women, etc) for their problems. IPI is at the trough of this game and spend their energy blaming the people that Republicans love to hate. On a good day you can get Democrats to focus on problems that affect peoples lives until… squirrel! - wordslinger - Tuesday, Feb 25, 14 @ 1:26 pm: John Tillman said that? Is that for real? Put down the crack pipe, dude. This is the guy who showed up at Blago’s sentencing because he knew there would be tons of TV cameras and reporters at Dirksen desperate to interview anyone. You didn’t have to like Blago, and I didn’t, but leveraging his family’s tragedy for publicity was disgusting. - ChicagoR - Tuesday, Feb 25, 14 @ 1:27 pm: Funny. I always thought “False narratives that hide the truth” was IPI’s business model. - PublicServant - Tuesday, Feb 25, 14 @ 1:27 pm: Perfect case of the pot calling the kettle black here. Tillman continues to be a joke and a shill. - olddog - Tuesday, Feb 25, 14 @ 1:42 pm: It’s like “class warfare.” Ever notice how the guys who squeal about it the most are the same ones who are waging it? - Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Feb 25, 14 @ 1:47 pm: “Bruce Rauner is an excellent populist politician, but while populists can gain favor for brief periods, it is hard to sustain it over the long run,” John Tillman, CEO of the Illinois Policy Institute said. “The essence of the strategy is to divide people, driven by resentment and bitterness based on false narratives that must hide the truth.” Better. - Daryl - Tuesday, Feb 25, 14 @ 2:00 pm: The IPI and Illinois Watchdog would do well to continue treating each other as respectable entities with opinions that matter. God knows the rest of us don’t. - Bill White - Tuesday, Feb 25, 14 @ 2:08 pm: Well done, Oswego Willy! If only someone had a fake Twitter account to spread this around! === “Bruce Rauner is an excellent populist politician, but while populists can gain favor for brief periods, it is hard to sustain it over the long run,” said John Tillman, CEO of the Illinois Policy Institute. === - Just Me - Tuesday, Feb 25, 14 @ 2:16 pm: Assuming Rauner wins the primary, it will be interesting to see two candidates who both are pushing a populist agenda: one on how government fixes all the problems, and another on how government and government unions are the source of all the problems. - Mighty M. Mouse - Tuesday, Feb 25, 14 @ 2:20 pm: ===Sounds like a lot of stuff Tillman says=== My thought exactly. I said to myself, it sounds like Tillman is describing himself. But Willie really hit the nail on the head: ===“Bruce Rauner is an excellent populist politician, but while populists can gain favor for brief periods, it is hard to sustain it over the long run,” John Tillman, CEO of the Illinois Policy Institute said. “The essence of the strategy is to divide people, driven by resentment and bitterness based on false narratives that must hide the truth.”=== +1 - AFSCME Steward - Tuesday, Feb 25, 14 @ 2:53 pm: “The essence of the strategy is to divide people, driven by resentment and bitterness based on false narratives that must hide the truth.” Sounds exactly like the Rauner strategy. - Pensioner - Tuesday, Feb 25, 14 @ 3:06 pm: @VanillaMan - Tuesday, Feb 25, 14 @ 12:49 pm: Couldn’t have said it better myself. - Grandson of Man - Tuesday, Feb 25, 14 @ 3:48 pm: Great job, Willy, as always. Rich, thanks for posting the link to Tillman’s statements about public workers. Classic projection, after Tillman himself was trying to get the “working class” to resent public employees who have a little more than they do. - Driveby - Tuesday, Feb 25, 14 @ 3:51 pm: While you Springfield insider bozos take shots at Tillman and the IPI, they’re out doing the research you should be doing, like this report about local pensions they released today: http://illinoispolicy.org/wp-content/files_mf/1393288448MuniPaper2014Local_Pension_Crisis_e.pdf# - Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Feb 25, 14 @ 3:59 pm: - Driveby -, Should we do the research of the $500K donated to the IPI first, or just read the report and just nod that they are coming from this unbiased? - Driveby - Tuesday, Feb 25, 14 @ 4:20 pm: Oswego Willy- you should read the report and answer with facts and not ad hominem stuff, which is how IPI research is typically dismissed, in error, on this site. - Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Feb 25, 14 @ 4:25 pm: - Driveby -, There are times the messenger is not the best vessel for the message, and sometimes being the recipient of cash-money to run your organization makes the “unbiased” seem …less so. The $500k is a fact too… right? - Grandson of Man - Tuesday, Feb 25, 14 @ 4:32 pm: “Oswego Willy- you should read the report and answer with facts and not ad hominem stuff” “While you Springfield insider bozos” You criticize someone for ad hominem attacks after making one yourself. C’mon man, get some better game. - Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Feb 25, 14 @ 4:39 pm: Thanks to all for the props, appreciate it - GOM -, point well made. - Driveby - Tuesday, Feb 25, 14 @ 4:54 pm: GOM, Oswego- My criticism was that you offer no facts to answer IPI research. That you are ‘Springfield insider bozos’ is unrelated. PS: Get a life. If you spent as much time looking hard at pension numbers as you do writing here there might be more consensus. - Fearless Freep - Tuesday, Feb 25, 14 @ 6:42 pm: Quinn hasn’t run as a “populist” nor has he campaigned on a “populist message” for many years now. Populists run against big government and large concentrations of power. When is the last time Quinn has talked about streamlining government?? (Answer: Well over a decade) He can’t run as an outsider against special interests because he is on the “inside” now. Can’t talk about taxpayer rights anymore, not with his dismal record of taxing and spending, are you kidding? - Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Feb 25, 14 @ 6:49 pm: ===Populists run against big government and large concentrations of power. === So the whole “Paycheck holding” and the Pension “Glorious Leader” stuff is explained… how? - collar observer - Tuesday, Feb 25, 14 @ 7:39 pm: Projection indeed! - Just The Way It Is One - Tuesday, Feb 25, 14 @ 8:26 pm: …And the “essence” of Tillman’s opinions are to obviously take them with a grain of salt…! Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.