33 Comments - Anonymouth - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 9:22 am: === and the 22nd District had some of the lowest turnout in the State of Illinois === Wrong. Madigan’s 13th Ward, which makes up the majority of the district, has the highest percentage turnout in the municipal runoff earlier this year. Despite the 13th Ward’s significant hispanic population, it went for Rahm over Chuy. - Anonin' - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 9:22 am: Check the Miller’s contributions from home and not the shop in Chicago…opps - Tom B. - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 9:22 am: Republican money and Bruce Rauner are not things Democratic primary voters like. This is why messing with other sides races almost never works with your own plant, voters wise up to people trying to snow job them. - wordslinger - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 9:23 am: What’s the point of an ILGO is this guy doesn’t get a boatload of money? - Oswego Willy - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 9:26 am: The wind of change is the Raunerites infecting the Democratic Party primary, I hopes of the Rod Blagojevich dream of a “Governor’s Party”, owned and operated by one man, and Democrats and Republicans, “enemies” now face the marauder at the gate, ideologues buying a state, one political party dismantling at a time. It’s real. It’s happening. Gonzalez is the political start like Ken Dunkin was the governmental erosion. Democrats, understand, this isn’t a “one-time” run to rid your party from Illinois. It’s Raunerites moving forward, and even losses will be wins. Every dollar used to fight a Raunerite like Gonzalez is a dollar not coming back to beat Raunerites in November. The Raunerite $39 million, that is the beginning, not the end. - Birdseed - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 9:35 am: === - wordslinger - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 9:23 am: What’s the point of an ILGO is this guy doesn’t get a boatload of money? === Exactly. This seems like a match made in Heaven. He’ll be flush with money. - Oswego Willy - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 9:38 am: Apologies, nearly $35 million, but what’s $4 million among Raunerites? Still, my apologies. - Tempo - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 9:41 am: Rahm needs to pick a team and make a clear show of force. Sitting on the sidelines now while the Speaker of the House - and other fellow Democrats get well funded Rauner opposition is not a wise move in either the short or long term. - Right on - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 9:51 am: Money isn’t everything. Rauner won by a slim margin only and he almost didn’t win the primary. Raunerites will need every dime to even make a dent and survive. Ken Dunkin’s endorsement of Rahm isn’t going to help at all in his district. This Rauner-Dunkin cookery has been simmering for a long, long time. - Willie Stark - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 9:53 am: I’d title this video “Let’s Pretend.” Gonzalez pretending like he don’t know nothin’’bout no Bruce Rauner or ILGO and Dietrich pretending he’s an objective journalist, rather than a political propagandist. So, I guess the “winds of change” are blowing us back to the yellow journalism of the Gilded Age. - VanillaMan - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 9:58 am: He says nothing. He has no motivation except his own biography. If he was incapable of saying the word, “change”, he would be a French mime with five o’clock hobo stubble. Candidates need to stand for something beyond “change”. Anyone selling himself as a double masters ivy league male model with experience in making the world a better place, should be bursting with excitement. Instead we are forced to listen to an empty sales pitch. If he is really who he claims to be, he hides his brilliant and massive accomplishments which supposedly is our proof of his genius. I smell a fake. - Chicago Cynic - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 10:05 am: He’s a pretty impressive guy with an interesting and colorful background, though definitely very high on the political naivete scale. To the best I can tell, he’s not a plant and curiously, he’s super-ambitious. I just don’t know anyone not associated with Rauner who will be willing to help in a serious way. Oh, and Miller is most definitely a Democrat. He’s also a BGA board member and staunch reformer. He’s definitely for real and a really great guy. - JS Mill - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 10:05 am: =ideologues buying a state, one political party dismantling at a time.= You hit the nail perfectly on the head! The Democratic party set this up perfectly through the continuing chaos and damage of unbalanced and shady budgeting at a time when they could have “solved” the state’s fiscal problems in a substantive way. Now a handful of the hyper-wealthy can get a good deal on buying the state. It will not make tings better. - PublicServant - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 10:07 am: I long for the days of Illinois being governed by the legislature and not by the courts, and I hope we can return to the days of paying down our backlog of bills to those private businesses that provide service to the state. Please stop “changing”, if it means change for the worse. And, please, let’s put some numbers on those things you desire to “change”, because it sure seems like your demands for change, Bruce (and your Innovation Consultant, whatever that is), are costing the state a lot of money, and that in spite of leaving so many of the state’s neediest unfunded. - horse w/ no name - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 10:09 am: Just stop already. He could have $100 million and it won’t matter. The 13th Ward is the last real machine on the south side. Those voters get weekly if not daily contact. It will be 80-20 no matter what. - Union Leader - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 10:10 am: Funny, how all of those good government BGA types come out of the woodwork to support Rauner and people of his ilk. - Not Rich - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 10:11 am: what do you think? about 15 mailers by Jan 20th into the district showing this guy posing with Rauner and bags of money.. in the end, Rauner is extremely unpopular in that district.. You go with the devil you know.. - Chicago Cynic - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 10:13 am: FYI - Many of those Miller contributions are for a different Steve Miller. He’s the Glencoe Venture Capitalist - not the health care lawyer. - Anonymous - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 10:38 am: Any money spent on this guy will be wasted. Next election is a presidential one. On the southside of Chicago you just need to open the doors of the polling places and the people come on in. I’ve been precinct captain on there for over 20 year. We do not need to do anything to get voters out when the presidential races are on the ballot - Lincoln Lad - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 10:39 am: Seems intelligent, articulate, and sincere. Wonder if he can introduce a little ‘fire’ and more charismatic energy. Going to need it to get attention, irrespective of financial backing that will likely come his way. I wouldn’t license ‘Mr. Gonzales Goes to Springfield’ just yet… - Sam Weinberg - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 10:40 am: Nothing says Democrat more than touting how the people he knows are moving to Wisconsin and Indiana and that’s the type of “change” we need to emulate. And, “I’ve collaborated with some of the smartest people in the world to solve some of the biggest problems int he world,” tells me this guy is a serial fantasist. People for whom that statement is true would, by definition, never actually say it. - siriusly - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 10:46 am: “I’ve collaborated with some of the smartest people in the world to solve some of the biggest problems in the world” And now you want to be a freshman State Representative - wow. I think he does not realize what the job entails. - wordslinger - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 10:49 am: – “I’ve collaborated with some of the smartest people in the world to solve some of the biggest problems in the world,”– Short list, maybe, on the biggest problems in the world he’s solved? War, terrorism, hunger, cableman appointments? With that track record, what’s he doing slumming in a Dem primary for the GA? He should be running against Jar-Jar for the Galactic Senate. - anonymoose - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 11:00 am: Here is my take on it. If Mr. Speaker has to deal with a candidate in his own district, that provides a distraction. This distraction potentially means less focus (and maybe fewer dollars) for other races in other districts. - walker - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 11:29 am: Sounds just like Zig Ziglar. An oppo researcher’s dream. He might be good, and have potential. He won’t get there by focusing on world-class accomplishments, more than on hopes and hard work. Not too many can pull off the Trump “I’m a Winner” persona. - Graduated College Student - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 12:17 pm: ===“I’ve collaborated with some of the smartest people in the world to solve some of the biggest problems in the world”=== And what was your solution to the problem called “People keep entrusting modern MBA-degree holders with running things more consequential than a fast food franchise, when really they shouldn’t.” - sangamo better blues - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 12:29 pm: So Gonzales’ father was a union electrician, which allowed his children the opportunities to “get ahead in life” (his own words at the 8 min mark). However, he is opposed to the same labor protections for working families in downstate Illinois? - farmer's wife - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 1:36 pm: “Seems intelligent, articulate, and sincere.” There goes his chance of ever getting elected in Illinois. - mokenavince - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 1:48 pm: He sounds pretty good, he has a great last name and could be a HARD WORKER.He may give Madigan a real run for his money. He may lose an election or two. And then take the prize. He sounds like a comer. - Losing My Edge - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 2:20 pm: I know this basically a pointless comment, and perhaps this is presumptuous and there are in fact two Californians named Devraj DasGupta, but I just think it’s funny his treasurer has an IMDB page: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2178420/ - Precinct Captain - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 2:30 pm: ==- JS Mill - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 10:05 am:== Under Democrats, the bill backlog was going down and the pension payments were made. Now with Rauner we have a skyrocketing deficit, bill backlog spiraling out of control, and more downgrades without an end in sight. Yes, blame Democrats! - JS Mill - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 3:46 pm: @Precinct Captain- Victim much? You may want to stop, take a breath, and then give my post a reread. I was blaming Democrats, but not for what you think although yeah, Illinois was tip top financially when the ILGA and the executive office were all Democratic Party controlled. /s IN fact, you may want to give your post bit of a a reread- “the bill backlog was going down and the pension payments were made.” Hmmm, I wonder how the “bill backlog got’ there in the first place? It’s a mystery? Not exactly an endorsement of their financial acumen. And, they only made the pension payments when Quinn was governor so you may want to be a bit more precise with your comments. They are responsible for the political trick bag they are in now. That is a fact. They only have themselves to blame for a guy like Baron Von Carhartt doing what he is doing to them now. - CrazyHorse - Monday, Dec 14, 15 @ 9:16 pm: I lived in the 13th ward for the majority of my life. Madigan doesn’t need to spend a dime to beat this guy. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.