30 Comments - 300 - Friday, Dec 18, 15 @ 10:18 am: Any particular reason Scott didn’t include Friends of MJM? That’s as much a caucus/party committee as anything else. There’s also DPI-Federal, which is used for assorted state “party-building” activities. - wordslinger - Friday, Dec 18, 15 @ 10:20 am: –With a mere flick of a couple certain special wrists, the Democrats can be $20 million behind yet again.– No doubt. And Rauner might not even have to tap that $20 million. Griff and the rest of his network could swamp the field without breaking a sweat. It will be interesting to see if any Cincinati-lawyer sneaky funds come into play, as they did in the past vs. Schock, Dillard, Brady and Rutherford. With Rauner and his pals, Dems can’t compete on money. And Republicans dare not buck them. - Oswego Willy - Friday, Dec 18, 15 @ 10:22 am: ===With a mere flick of a couple certain special wrists, the Democrats can be $20 million behind yet again.=== To me, that’s more of the chasing than anything else and getting caught up with “We can hang with Rauner” The Dems can’t. Thinking back to the $60+ million Rauner spent, plus the $20 million parked, there was never, not once, that the Rauner Crew couldn’t get $250K on a Tuesday afternoon after dialing 3-4 friends. Just like Munger. There’s no worry on cash. They can cut Ads, lay out a statewide but and by the end of business have it paid for, production included. That’s a huge worry of any Crew’s mind. I’m impressed with the Democratic monetary response. Up to 2 years ago, wow, that would be the talk. I’ve been saying since the IllinoisGO and Turnaround Agenda PACs hitting the scene; the Democrats need to focus on spending their historical fundraising to be impactful, but chasing Rauner’s money in hopes to matching is the losing battle. By the time I types this, Rauner could’ve added $100K and I won’t forget that. - Century Club - Friday, Dec 18, 15 @ 10:24 am: Rauner should get naming rights for the IL Republican party. - Juice - Friday, Dec 18, 15 @ 10:28 am: 300, I imagine the leaders’ individual funds would be in the “General Assembly candidate committee” numbers. Thought it would be interesting to know what the numbers look like if you also include candidate committee numbers for Senators not up this cycle, since I believe they can still transfer an unlimited amount to DPI or the caucus committees. - Norseman - Friday, Dec 18, 15 @ 10:29 am: Rauner will have his sham Dem PAC do his dirty work for him. For him it’s about plausible deniability - Beaner - Friday, Dec 18, 15 @ 10:30 am: “Rauner says”…this should be a clue to stop listening. He is a professional figurer. Watch what he does, not what he says. - Junior - Friday, Dec 18, 15 @ 10:33 am: Seems like the bottom line is that both sides will have the money to get their message out. This is a good thing, no? - Rahm'sMiddleFinger - Friday, Dec 18, 15 @ 10:35 am: It would be helpful to include Friends of MJM and on the Senate side, Cullerton’s account and his State Central Committee account. Both which are raising 100 of thousands. - 300 - Friday, Dec 18, 15 @ 10:46 am: –Any particular reason Scott didn’t include Friends of MJM?– Correction, I’m sure it’s included in the candidate committee section. Might make more sense to break it out, though. - VanillaMan - Friday, Dec 18, 15 @ 10:47 am: Rauner and his supporters will need every dime to keep Illinois citizens from forgetting how much worse we are today, than we were a year ago. They will need every dollar to spin their excuses why they have utterly failed to do the very basic business of government - lead. So, it shouldn’t be a surprise that they are collecting as much cash as they can. They are completely aware of how fraudulent their campaign promises have been and how far they have fallen short. When you see a tornado coming, you find as much coverage as possible. Rauner and his supporters are up to their necks in coverage, knowing full well that most of it will be blown away. - Oswego Willy - Friday, Dec 18, 15 @ 10:48 am: To the Arnold tweet, If anything needs to be understood from “yesterday” to March is that IllinoisGO is a Republican Governor inserting himself into the Democratic primaries to create Raunerites. If Democrats can’t get that message out clearly and completely, that’s on them, not Rauner for having the means to do it. - VanillaMan - Friday, Dec 18, 15 @ 10:48 am: Money is their substitute for accomplishments. - 13TH - Friday, Dec 18, 15 @ 10:51 am: to bad all that money could not be going to social service programs to help the most of need, it this the season - Junior - Friday, Dec 18, 15 @ 10:58 am: Messin’ with the other side’s primaries is Politics 101, and all participants have been doing it for generations. On the national level, I suspect the Dems would love to “encourage” a Trump nomination, and the Reps would be gaga over a Sanders nomination. Doing things to encourage the desired result is legal, fair and expected. The Dems will have plenty of money to expose Rauner’s efforts. The voters will decide whether it is a big deal to them. - Rahm'sMiddleFinger - Friday, Dec 18, 15 @ 11:01 am: - VanillaMan - Friday, Dec 18, 15 @ 10:48 am: Money is their substitute for accomplishments. Vman, you’re talking about Rauner right? Just like in his campaign, money was a substitute for substance. This state is a lot worse off than it was a year ago. - Augie - Friday, Dec 18, 15 @ 11:03 am: Just sitting on there hands waiting for Rauner money will be bad miscalculation by Republicans. When you are not out actively talking to groups and people you are not building energy. This will also be used against them to paint them as beholden to King Rauner. Laziness is never good. - Junior - Friday, Dec 18, 15 @ 11:09 am: Finger, imo we’ll know if the state is better off once the current rasslin’ match concludes. - VanillaMan - Friday, Dec 18, 15 @ 11:32 am: imo we’ll know if the state is better off once the current rasslin’ match concludes That isn’t how it works. You become governor the moment you are inaugurated. You are responsible for what happens. You are supposed to have a plan A - through to a plan Z if necessary. If you didn’t have plans, then you shouldn’t have ran. Ask Jim Edgar or Jim Thompson. They took what was given to them and made it work as well as they could while implementing plans. That is how you be a governor. Rauner isn’t governing. He isn’t working with other elected officials. He is dictating and holding our budget hostage in order to get his one and only plan A. So - we already know. We know that Illinois is worse off today than it was a year ago. We know that if Rauner thought the situation was bad before - it is worse now. We already know that it will take years to fix what has been ignored, destroyed and politically spent. Look at the Illinois State Museum, just for a small example. You cannot merely open the doors today and expect what has happened to be fixed. The Museum won’t be fixed in a day, a month, or a year. Its accreditation is gone. Its leadership is gone. The experienced staff is gone. Repeat this throughout our state. We’ve lost far more than what would have been gained. Our bonds are lower. Our debt is higher. Our stack of bills is out of control. Our credit is shot. The problems created by Rauner won’t be fixed within this term. We will be lucky to get it fixed to where we were a year ago, three years from now. This has been the worst start to any administration I have ever seen. He took a mountain of problems and turned them into a war zone. He took molehills and turned them into mountains. Money is Bruce Rauner’s substitute for accomplishments. He better have a hell of a lot of it to distract our citizens to his disastrous administration. - The Captain - Friday, Dec 18, 15 @ 11:44 am: The 4th quarter A-1 totals really stand out. As an earlier commenter pointed out it isn’t only about the money it’s also a measure of who is engaging and activating their support network. At this admittedly very early stage it’s surprising to see the difference so stark. - Junior - Friday, Dec 18, 15 @ 11:51 am: Vanilla - kinda tough to analyze what the state of the state will be without seeing the goodies. There is currently chaos, but that is likely temporary. - Apocalypse Now - Friday, Dec 18, 15 @ 11:56 am: The Republicans are now competitive on campaign funds. If they are competitive they will win races. The Democrats will be screaming for campaign reform and talking about the unfairness of Rauner and his allies spending so much money. - Anonymous - Friday, Dec 18, 15 @ 12:19 pm: The Dems not only have plenty of money to expose Rauner’s efforts, the Dems implemented many of the relevant campaign finance reforms. They had the financial advantage when they made those laws, but the shoe is now on the other foot. - Nuke the Whales - Friday, Dec 18, 15 @ 12:50 pm: So I decided to try and calculate what the “true” amount in the respective ILGA member funds are for each party, since senators not up in 2016 aren’t included. Turns out I don’t have a long enough lunch break to do it, but it should be noted on the Democratic side that means this figure does not include John Cullerton, Daniel Biss, Don Harmon, Andy Manar and James Clayborne who aren’t exactly poor. - JS Mill - Friday, Dec 18, 15 @ 1:23 pm: =The Republicans are now competitive on campaign funds= “The Republicans are now a wholly owned subsidiary of Rauner inc.” That is what you meant to say right? - Oswego Willy - Friday, Dec 18, 15 @ 1:28 pm: The Raunerite Party apparatus controls about $23 million of the $29 million+ listed. Add the $9 million in IllinoisGO, that’s $29 million controlled by Rauberites, $6 million controlled by the subsidiaries. Something to ponder, when talking “party” - Ahoy! - Friday, Dec 18, 15 @ 1:39 pm: So where is all the outrage over how much money the democrats are raising? And don’t give me that crap about their only trying to compete with Rauner, before him they were out raising the Republican’s by gobs. - Junior - Friday, Dec 18, 15 @ 1:40 pm: Willy - agreed, the funding of the Republican party is too top heavy. Course, there’s a bit of top-heaviness on the other side, too. The plaintiff’s bar and the public sector unions have owned the Democratic party for a generation. How, short of abandoning the first amendment, do we solve this dilemma? - burbanite - Friday, Dec 18, 15 @ 2:24 pm: I am a firm believer that a strong ground game is key. The ability of Dems and labor to mobilize enthusiastic experienced walkers at no cost is worth a lot of money. As opposed to the Republican’s who seem to rely heavily on paid walkers and/or those who prefer clean indoor work. - SAP - Friday, Dec 18, 15 @ 2:44 pm: Relying only on money or only on foot soldiers doesn’t cut it. The Dems should have enough money and definitely has enough foot soldiers for the next election. The R’s obviously have the money. Let’s see if they can build a ground game. As an aside, “R’s” used to mean Republicans. Now it means Raunerites. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.