* In case you’re keeping track, today’s $2 million contribution brings the Republican Governors Association’s tally to $6 million since the GOP primary.
* And, of course, the DGA was out with a quick response…
Money speaks for money and now that billionaire Bruce Rauner’s plans to eliminate the minimum wage are out-of-the-bag, it’s time to circle the wagons, and the wine casks. The people of Illinois are seeing through Rauner’s phony “everyman” act and no amount of money will hide the fact that his policies favor the super-rich at the expense of working families.
…Adding… More Friday news…
…Adding More…. That A-1 Rauner filed today included a $1.5 million contribution to himself.
…Adding Still More… Just two weeks ago, Rauner’s campaign was pushing about 500 ratings points a week in Chicago. I’m told by one source that he’s now up to 1,596 points in the city, but told by another that it’s more than that.
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Reader comments closed for the weekend
Friday, Sep 5, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Instead of a song today, do yourself a favor and listen to Amanda Vinicky’s “extended version” of her story on Arenzville’s Burgoo festival. I know that might not sound like much, but it’s fine story-telling.
So, click here and, again, scroll down for the extended version. You’ll probably never hear it on the radio.
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* Like I wrote earlier today, both parties do this because it works. And in this case, she has a valid point about using taxpayer funds…
Congressman Bill Foster used thousands of taxpayer dollars to deliver a mailing to his constituents that is a complete misrepresentation. Foster described how unfair it is that some millionaires pay lower tax rates than middle class families. What Congressman Foster failed to disclose was that as one of the 50 wealthiest members of a Congress and a multimillionaire, he paid no taxes in 2011 and when he did pay taxes, he paid a lower rate than most middle class families.
Foster has routinely supported higher taxes on Illinois citizens while refusing to pay his own. It is quite literally the height of hypocrisy.
Foster’s taxpayer-paid mailing blares: “When millionaires can pay a lower tax rate than middle class families, it’s bad for our economy, and it’s just plain wrong.”
Darlene Senger, a single mom and Republican candidate for Congress, said Foster’s misrepresentations are insulting and his use of taxpayer dollars to deceive his own constituents is beyond the pale.
“For one year, Bill Foster paid no income taxes and when he did, even as a multimillionaire, he paid less than middle class Illinois families. And now, he is using taxpayer dollars to denounce the same practice he engaged in without disclosing the facts to his constituents,” said Senger. “The simple truth is Bill Foster is being deeply disingenuous and the voters of the 11th Congressional District deserve better than a taxpayer-funded mail piece littered with misrepresentations.”
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Have we hit bottom yet?
Friday, Sep 5, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Earlier this week, a guy working for Bruce Rauner tried to interest me in running a story on Gov. Pat Quinn’s “minimum wage challenge.” Quinn did a fly drive-around this week to promote the challenge, so the Rauner guy wanted to point out that lots of campaign dollars were being spent on the show and wondered why it didn’t factor into his minimum wage spending limit?
I said that was kinda silly. The challenge is mainly about food and other small expenses. Totally symbolic, of course, but bringing up that other stuff just seemed juvenile.
* But the Quinn campaign just made the same sort of argument…
How Many Cases of Wine Can Bruce Rauner Fit In His “Trashcan” Suburban?
CHICAGO - Bruce Rauner was seen stepping out of what appears to be a 2015 LS Model Chevrolet Suburban, despite claiming that he drives a 1990s “trashcan van” in his latest ad.
Here’s the video.
A 2015 LS Suburban has a maximum cargo volume of 121.1 cubic feet.
A case of wine usually has a width of 10 inches, a length of 12 inches, and a height of 12 inches, which had us wondering…
How many cases of wine can fit in Bruce Rauner’s “trashcan” Suburban?
Volume of a 2015 LS Suburban:
121.1 cubic feet = 209, 260.8 cubic inches
Volume of a case of wine:
10 x 12 x 12 = 1,440 cubic inches
209,260.8 / 1,440 = 145.32
That’s right. Bruce Rauner can fit about 145 cases of wine in his Suburban.
Oh, for crying out loud. What does being driven to an event have to do with his beat up old van?
Man, I’m glad it’s Friday.
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Meetings held, no progress yet reported
Friday, Sep 5, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Republicans weren’t invited to these meetings, but Sen. Andy Manar’s education funding formula overhaul legislation was the object of several summertime discussions in the House…
A number of top Democratic House lawmakers have been quietly meeting to discuss a proposed overhaul of Illinois’ dated school funding formula, which, if approved, would direct more state money to poorer rural districts at the expense of wealthier suburban districts.
Members of the group told The Associated Press the meetings came at the behest of House Speaker Michael Madigan, whose chamber declined to take up the issue last spring despite its passage by the Senate and widespread calls for the first revamp of the formula in nearly two decades.
“With the specter of additional dollars going away, and that’s a very, very real specter, there has to be a way to allocate money to the districts most in need,” said Rep. Frank Mautino, Madigan’s point person on budget issues. “We have to have something in place to make sure the districts with the highest poverty and least available wealth don’t fold.” […]
Steve Brown, Madigan’s spokesman, said the speaker has not been directly involved but planned to “rely on their work product as it comes along going forward.”
Mautino, whose office is in the same suite as the speaker’s at the capitol, noted that a number of financial issues will play into the school funding formula debate, including whether lawmakers vote to extend the temporary tax hike and the fate of a judicial challenge to the state’s pension crisis solution.
“Nothing exists in a vacuum,” he said.
The reform’s concept is quite good. Base funding on poverty levels. But the practical political problems with this reform are obvious. Some districts are gonna lose state money, so it has to be a very, very gradual transition because there’s no extra money lying around to ween the “losers” off and boost funding for poorer districts.
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* After showing Democrats like Pat Quinn and Mike Frerichs closing the gap in recent days, We Ask America is showing the opposite happening in the US Senate race…
State Sen. Jim Oberweis trails three-term U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin by 10 percentage points in a new Reboot Illinois poll.
Oberweis, a Sugar Grove Republican best known statewide by the family dairy company that bears his name, had trailed Durbin by 13 and 15 points in Reboot Illinois polls on June 12 and July 30. An Aug. 27 poll by the Chicago Sun-Times’ Early & Often political portal, also conducted by We Ask America, found Oberweis trailing Durbin by 7.3 percentage points, 47.8 percent to Oberweis’ 40.5 percent.
The Reboot Illinois poll, conducted by We Ask America on Sept. 4, is based on automated phone calls with a random sample of 1,014 likely Illinois voters statewide, including 28 percent of responses from cell phone contacts. It has a margin of error of +/-3.08 percentage points and party split of 38 percent Democrats, 26 percent Republicans and 36 percent independents.
“After conducting three U.S. Senate polls in 10 days, the results have varied from a 7-point to a 10-point lead for Democrat Dick Durbin,” said Gregg Durham, chief operating officer of We Ask America. “While these recent polls show gains in favor of challenger Republican Jim Oberweis, there is still a lot of time left for game-changing movement.”
Sen. Durbin did himself no favors by refusing to release his own poll results the other day.
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The attacks may be working
Friday, Sep 5, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* ABC7 Chicago, January 8, 2014…
“Anyone who wants to see more people going back to work should support lowering the minimum wage,” John Tilman, Illinois Policy Institute, said.
* Now, compare that tone to ABC7 Chicago’s report yesterday…
At the Conservative Illinois Policy Institute to which Rauner is a major contributor, Ted Dabrowski said raising the minimum wage does not address the state’s real problem.
“What’s the best way to help those who can’t get jobs? And what’s the best way to create jobs rather than be talking about the minimum wage per se?” Dabrowski said.
…Adding… From John Tillman…
Hi, Rich,
Hope you had a good summer. To be clear, our position has not changed on min wage. The more recent comments were in context of Rauner’s blueprint release, not an alteration of our position.
See link for our position - same as it has always been.
http://www.illinoispolicy.org/analysis-of-gop-gubernatorial-candidate-bruce-rauners-bring-back-blueprint/
John
I never said the position changed, just the tone.
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Our collective inferiority complex
Friday, Sep 5, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Tribune…
“It’s so Illinois.”
The tweet picking up steam on the Internet Friday morning was not alluding to the state’s prairie farmlands, Chicago sports teams or even hot dogs without ketchup.
Instead, Illinois immediately popped into one scholar’s mind when asked to reflect on the corruption revealed during the scandalous trial of former Virginia Gov. Robert McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, who were found guilty of numerous offenses Thursday.
* The quote…
“I think Jefferson would be appalled that in his own commonwealth, this guy could be gifted a Ferrari [ride]. It’s so Illinois or Louisiana,” said Clay Jenkinson, a renowned humanities scholar and expert on Thomas Jefferson who hosts a radio show called “The Thomas Jefferson Hour.”
* I searched Twitter for the phrase “It’s so Illinois” and came up with 17 hits as of this writing.
Yep, 17. But that warrants a story in the Trib.
Besides, who cares what some guy in Virginia says? StateIntegrity.org gives Virginia an “F” for risk of corruption. Illinois got a “C.”
So, bite us, dude.
…Adding… Not to mention, we haven’t had an Illinois governor as thoroughly and openly corrupt as Virginia’s McDonnell since Gov. Small in the 1920s. McDonnell was absolutely brazen. He made Rod Blagojevich look like a statesman.
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* From the Bruce Rauner campaign earlier this morning…
Day 8: No Quinn Response on Illegal Hires
It’s been more than a week since Pat Quinn began dodging questions about dozens of illegally hired patronage cronies who remain in state jobs. These are the same illegal hires that denied hard-working Illinoisans – especially our veterans – the opportunity to compete for state jobs.
Who is Pat Quinn protecting? Why are dozens of illegally hired cronies still working in the Quinn administration?
* The campaign also pointed to this News-Gazette editorial…
Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner has challenged Quinn’s enthusiasm for correcting the abuses that occurred during his tenure as well as that of his predecessor Rod Blagojevich. Rauner says “dozens” who were hired illegally remain on the IDOT payroll in contravention of Quinn’s order to clean house, suggesting that those with more clout were protected while those with less were sacrificed for public relations purposes. […]
Gov. Quinn has admitted that what occurred on his watch was inappropriate and pledged to put an end to the wrongdoing. If he does not follow through on his promise [to clean house], the damage to his credibility will be significant.
* The governor was pressed again on the matter today…
Obviously, he knows there are still “tainted” folks on the IDOT payroll. It’s a dodge, but it buys him some time.
*** UPDATE *** Rauner campaign…
Quinn Doesn’t Deny Illegal Hires Still at IDOT
“While Pat Quinn is unwilling to fire his illegal patronage hires, Illinois voters will get a chance to fire Pat Quinn in November.” – Rauner spokesperson Mike Schrimpf
Earlier this morning, Pat Quinn was confronted about dozens of illegally hired patronage cronies who remain in state jobs. Despite dancing around a series of questions, Quinn never denied the facts. Instead, he said he would ask his new transportation secretary to “review it.”
Review it? Pat Quinn told the people of Illinois he had already reviewed it and led the people of Illinois to believe that he took decisive action.
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On wine, wealth and bipartisan bashing
Friday, Sep 5, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Eric Zorn…
Gov. Pat Quinn’s campaign is arguing this week that his Republican challenger Bruce Rauner’s membership in an exclusive California wine club is evidence that Rauner is “out of touch” with “hardworking Illinois families.”
I disagree.
I think it’s evidence that Rauner is out of touch with reality.
Zorn then goes on to describe several studies which had similar results. For instance…
A French experimenter asked more than 50 wine experts to evaluate and compare a glass of red wine and a glass of white wine in 2001. None noticed that the “red” wine was just the white wine with few dots of food coloring in it.
Conclusion…
Of course some wines are objectively better than others — smoother, more flavorful and so on.
But the correlation between price and quality is so demonstrably weak that you have to question the judgment of anyone, no matter how rich, who spends tens of thousands of dollars and more on the liquid equivalent of astrological forecasts.
* John Kass addresses it as well…
Lately, Quinn has been slamming Rauner for paying six figures to belong to a fancy wine club. What Quinn deftly forgets to mention is that Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a Democrat, was in that revealing photo toting Rauner’s bottle of pricey wine.
His conclusion…
A guy that rich can’t be bought. And Illinois is drowning in the backwash of big government sins. If something isn’t done soon to cut spending, we’ll all be on a raft floating toward Texas.
So is Rauner too wealthy to be governor?
I’d say no.
Except Rauner keeps saying he wants to increase spending by billions on education, infrastructure, IDNR, etc.
* CNBC’s Robert Frank writes about the wine club, as well as other races around the country featuring wealthy candidates…
The new scarlet letter in politics is “R”—as in “Rich.”
From Hillary Clinton to congressional, gubernatorial and state-legislature candidates around the country, wealthy candidates are getting pummeled on the campaign trail because of their large fortunes. Once seen as symbols of the American dream, today’s wealthy candidates are trying desperately (and often awkwardly) to deny their wealth and appear as middle class, everyday Americans. […]
Even before the current election cycle, millionaire candidates weren’t faring well. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, 263 millionaire candidates who put at least $500,000 of their own money into their campaigns have run for congressional office since 2002. But 84 percent of them lost.
In 2012, of the 48 millionaire self-funded candidates who ran for congressional office, only 12 won.
As the Center for Responsive Politics said, “Though they don’t lack for money, self-funded candidates typically lose at the polls.”
* Rauner is clearly a different breed of rich candidate. But you can plainly see how effective this attack is by simply looking at what the Republicans have been doing to Hillary Clinton over the past few months.
John Kass engaged in it himself not long ago…
Hillary stands for people who are “dead broke” but also have multiple homes.
She bragged about it to a purring Diane Sawyer of ABC News, saying she really knows what it’s like to struggle. It happened when her husband, former President Bill Clinton, left the White House.
Will someone have the decency to please cue the sad violin as Hillary recounts the ordeal of the multiple homes?
And remember, Democrat Brad Schneider was hit in a recent radio ad for being one of the wealthiest members of Congress. Also, Dick Durbin has been repeatedly derided as a “millionaire” by none other than his millionaire opponent.
The issue is used by both sides because it works. Plain and simple. Ergo Rauner’s efforts to highlight his $18 watch, Carhartt jacket and beat up old van.
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Poll: Cross down to single digits
Friday, Sep 5, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* It looks like suburban Cook and Chicago are reverting to form. As we saw earlier this week, Gov. Pat Quinn is now slightly ahead in suburban Cook in a We Ask America poll, the first time that’s happened all year.
And a new We Ask America poll also shows significant tightening in the state treasurer’s race. Rep. Tom Cross’ lead has slipped from 21 11 down to just six points. He’s now leading 43-37.
The sample was more Democratic than the firm’s recent Quinn poll, which could account for some of the slippage. Cross did around as well in the new poll as in the July poll with Downstate and collar county voters. The real changes are in Chicago and Cook…
* Chicago, July: Frerichs 52, Cross 25, Undecided 23
* Chicago, September: Frerichs 57, Cross 17, Skopek 4, Undecided 22
* Suburban Cook, July: Cross 45, Frerichs 34, Undecided 20
* Suburban Cook, September: Frerichs 44, Cross 36, Skopek 5, Undecided 15
Most of those Chicago undecideds will break toward Frerichs, and so will a substantial amount of the suburban Cook vote.
So, Frerichs is likely in the hunt, and that million dollars he’s planning to spend on TV won’t hurt at all.
* Meanwhile, Tom Kacich had a fascinating angle on the endorsement of Cross by the Illinois Chamber this week…
Cross, a state representative and the former leader of the Illinois House Republicans, Thursday renewed his pledge as treasurer to prepare a quarterly report on the state’s financial condition, to establish a government integrity unit in his office and to require the Legislature to pass a balanced budget. If it doesn’t, he said he would file a lawsuit.
“We’re in unprecedented times. We’ve seen from a financial standpoint a state that’s close to collapse and I think we need to use these offices in nontraditional ways,” Cross said.
He said he wouldn’t hesitate to file suit if a Republican Legislature passed or a Republican governor signed a budget that was out of balance. He declined to comment on whether he thought Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner’s budget proposal was balanced.
Emphasis added for obvious reasons. No way could Cross back up Rauner’s numbers without losing all credibility.
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* Natasha Korecki…
Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner, under the gun this week for admitting he belongs to an exclusive wine club that costs upward of $100,000 to join after portraying himself as the frugal $18 watch wearer, had a new everyday Joe ad teed up.
In this one, Rauner talks about his “trashcan van,” which he says he’s owned for 20 years — with “almost 200,000 miles.”
“I’ll live in Springfield, sell that state plane and drive my van to work because the Capital needs a good trash can,” Rauner says in the ad, chiding Gov. Pat Quinn for using a state plane to fly to Springfield.
* The ad…
* DGA response…
This is from the phony with a $100,000 extra parking spot. The ad is as insulting as it is incredulous. Voters beware.
*** UPDATE *** Quinn campaign…
“Mr. Rauner’s attempt to deceive voters into not thinking that he’s an out of touch billionaire with 9 homes and a $140,000+ wine club membership is offensive. But it’s not as offensive as the fact that his policies always benefit the very wealthy at the expense of the rest of us, whether it’s his heartless belief that the minimum wage should be eliminated or his plan to tax consumption of food and medicine. We don’t think voters will be fooled.”
Food and medicine taxes? A new front against Rauner appears to be opening.
*** UPDATE 2 *** The Rauner campaign responds to the food and medicine tax allegation…
This is a lie. Bruce’s growth plan only modernizes how we treat services - not goods like food and medicine. And in fact, Bruce explicitly said that he would exempt “medical services” and “day-to-day items like Laundromats, day care centers, barber shops and animal care.”
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Take that, Hoosiers!
Friday, Sep 5, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* From the US Appellate Court’s unanimous opinion yesterday that Indiana’s and Wisconsin’s gay marriage bans are unconstitutional…
Indiana has thus invented an insidious form of discrimination: favoring first cousins, provided they are not of the same sex, over homosexuals. Elderly first cousins are permitted to marry because they can’t produce children; homosexuals are forbidden to marry because they can’t produce children. The state’s argument that a marriage of first cousins who are past child-bearing age provides a “model [of] family life for younger, potentially procreative men and women” is impossible to take seriously.
At oral argument the state‘s lawyer was asked whether “Indiana’s law is about successfully raising children,” and since “you agree same-sex couples can successfully raise children, why shouldn’t the ban be lifted as to them?” The lawyer answered that “the assumption is that with opposite-sex couples there is very little thought given during the sexual act, sometimes, to whether babies may be a consequence.” In other words, Indiana’s government thinks that straight couples tend to be sexually irresponsible, producing unwanted children by the carload, and so must be pressured (in the form of governmental encouragement of marriage through a combination of sticks and carrots) to marry, but that gay couples, unable as they are to produce children wanted or unwanted, are model parents—model citizens really—so have no need for marriage. Heterosexuals get drunk and pregnant, producing unwanted children; their reward is to be allowed to marry. Homosexual couples do not produce unwanted children; their reward is to be denied the right to marry. Go figure.
Oof.
Judge Richard Posner wrote the opinion, naturally.
* By the way, Gov. Pat Quinn weighed in on the decision yesterday…
“This ruling is another victory for all people of our great country.
“In Illinois, we do not discriminate when it comes to love and marriage. Since the marriage equality went into effect in our state in June, couples across the Land of Lincoln have been able to marry freely and equally.
“We won’t stop until everyone in America has those same rights and protections under law. We set a model for the country in Illinois and now Wisconsin and Indiana will become the 20th and 21st states to enact marriage equality.
“Our country was founded on the desire to embrace all people and today is another step forward.”
* As did Equality Illinois…
The unanimous U.S. Court of Appeals ruling today in Chicago for the freedom to marry was a clarion call for Midwestern political leaders including Bruce Rauner of Illinois to end their stubborn opposition to marriage equality.
Equality Illinois demands that Bruce Rauner, the Republican nominee for governor, apologize for his pledge to repeal marriage rights and declare that he supports full marriage equality for same-sex couples.
“Bruce Rauner cannot hide behind his ‘no social agenda’ rhetoric when he has said clearly on the record that he would have vetoed the Illinois Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act had he been governor,” said Bernard Cherkasov, CEO of Equality Illinois, the state’s oldest and largest civil rights organization advocating for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Illinoisans.[…]
“The U.S. Court of Appeals spoke unequivocally in declaring that marriage discrimination hurts families, harms children, and is ultimately unconstitutional. Bruce Rauner’s explanations in defending his opposition to marriage rights are exactly what the court unanimously rejected, and it is both irrational and unconstitutional,” Cherkasov said.
“These political leaders do not have to wait for a further ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court to act. Gov. Pat Quinn and a majority of the Illinois House and Senate understood that when they passed the freedom to marry in Illinois,” said Cherkasov. “If Bruce Rauner doesn’t have the conviction to do what is right for families and children, then he doesn’t have what it takes to be the governor of the Land of Lincoln.”
No response yet from the Rauner camp.
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