Every time Gov. Bruce Rauner gives a major speech, social media (and even mass media) lights him up over the way he drops his Gs at the end of words.
He’s workin’ and doin’ his best and shakin’ up Springfield, or whatever.
Last year, after his first State of the State Address, Illinois Public Radio even interviewed a language expert about whether he was doin’ this on purpose.
It does seem contrived. Rauner was educated at Ivy League schools, after all, and worked in some of the highest echelons in business. If you listen to any of his speeches in the years before he ran for governor, you’ll notice that he talked back then like an educated Midwesterner.
Anyway, Gov. Rauner asked me over to the Executive Mansion for a chat after last Wednesday’s State of the State Address.
It wasn’t exactly an honor. He wanted me to come by so he and I could have it out after he said something false about me at a press conference.
He held the presser to unveil an executive order consolidating information technology services into a single state agency. It was a fairly non-controversial announcement about a much-needed governmental upgrade.
I was actually kinda bored listening on the Internet until the governor was asked about some state revenue projections that he sent to legislators several months ago and shared with me earlier this month. Rauner’s own projections were based on what would happen if the governor got his economic agenda passed. The memo to legislators was designed to build support for (or at least, defend) his controversial pro-business agenda.
I published Rauner’s projection of a $510 million revenue increase, which I thought insufficient to justify all this impasse-related carnage. As I pointed out, the governor’s numbers meant he was aiming for a mere 1.4 percent revenue increase over Fiscal Year 2015.
“The author of the Capitol Fax has his numbers way, way wrong and we will be discussin’ that in our budget address,” Rauner told reporters, even though I simply used Rauner’s own numbers.
“I will also point out,” Rauner continued, “that the author of that blog used to work for Speaker Madigan, so I don’t want to put too much credence in the commentary.”
What an absolute, total crock.
I was a House page for two or three weeks way back in 1985. My tenure may not have even been that long because the House wasn’t in session while I was a page, and I quit before they came back to town for a job on my college campus.
I wish I could tell you what happened at my subsequent meeting with Rauner, but I can’t because it was completely off the record. As he told reporters, Rauner will be issuing revised projections. Total increased revenue and state and local government savings, he believes, are about $6 billion.
I can, however, tell you a story because I cleared it with the governor the next day.
At one point during our discussion, I decided to lighten the mood a little and asked him what the deal was with all those dropped Gs, teasing him that he sounded like somebody attempting to imitate a hillbilly. That got a big laugh, particularly from Mrs. Rauner.
The governor said he now feels “free” to be himself since he was elected. Mrs. Rauner agreed that his public wardrobe has drastically deteriorated since election day, as has his grammar.
Rauner told me he couldn’t talk like he wanted and wear what he wanted when he was a businessman because nobody would want to do business with him. At one point, he said, his business partners even asked him not to drive his lousy old car to company outings because it was an embarrassment to them.
Rauner said he was the only partner at his firm who didn’t own a private jet and fancy cars. He said he’s “proud” to still have the first tie he ever bought.
So all of that video and audio of him speaking years ago was actually the contrived Rauner, the governor said. Now, he just wants to be himself, and that means droppin’ his Gs and doin’ other stuff like wearin’ the clothes he likes, not the clothes others expect him to don.
Anyway, it’s not exactly earth-shattering stuff, but I thought you’d be interested because this does give us some insight into how the governor thinks.
First, if you really get him angry he will throw you under the bus with Madigan. And second, he will happily and un-self-consciously drop his Gs while he does it.
Many Americans have a way of adapting new speech patterns and verbal ticks, linguists say, that might reflect the democratic notion that people can be what they want to be. It can be social climbing — the Eliza Doolittle in a lot of us. Or a need to fit in. Or sincere affinity.
Point bein’, it ain’t necessarily contrived.
In a classic 1963 radio interview, Studs Terkel asked Bob Dylan why a “highly literate, educated man” such as himself would talk “mountain talk.” Dylan, who grew up in Minnesota, laughed off the question, so Terkel supplied an answer of his own.
“It’s probably easier for you,” Terkel said to Dylan, to “express the feelings” you have in this way. Studs pointed out that their mutual hero, Woody Guthrie, never stopped talking like a dust-bowl Oakie though at some point he briefly went to college. […]
But if Rauner insists on talkin’ like regular folks, he might want to do a better job of standin’ up for regular folks.
- illinoised - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 9:20 am:
His “g-dropping” explanation sounds contrived.
- Anon and On and On - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 9:20 am:
If you’ve ever dealth with Finance and Investment Capital types, you’ll find that the large majority of them fancy themselves some kind of everyman rebel. Gone are the days of Bentley’s and Benz’s and $5,000 suits- now it’s fly-fishing and Harley riding.
- Oswego Willy - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 9:21 am:
===First, if you really get him angry he will throw you under the bus with Madigan.===
Ain’t that the truth. Even here in Comments, if you’re not with Rauner, you’re against Rauner, black and white, no gray, and if you disagree with Rauner, you are 100% for the Status Quo. So tiring.
===And second, he will happily and un-self-consciously drop his Gs while he does it.===
Ok, here’s my “Hmm” on all this premise;
Bruce Rauner, the businessman, doesn’t need coachin’ to to learn to speak to “money people”, no problem breathing, or stress, and I understand how difficult it can be for a Candidate to be speakin’ and speakin’ all the time, I can totally see that. Honest. Candudates lose their voices very often.
But you have to learn to speak how you normally “speak”?
Really?
“Hmm”… that’s tough to… believe(?)
- Anon at 9:23 - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 9:23 am:
The “real” Rauner drops his “g’s”.
Totally believe it. After all, that’s exactly how all the Lake Forest-raised, Dartmouth-educated street toughs I know speak.
- chi - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 9:23 am:
Before he was Governor he secretly wore his Carhartt around the house when the kids weren’t home. One time they came home to find him tinkerin’ around in the garage on an old car. He had a hard time explainin’ that one away, but now he let’s his workin’ man flag fly!
- PublicServant - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 9:24 am:
===but I can’t because it was completely off the record.===
Too bad. That’s the first thing that jumped out at me. Other than that, his justification for trying to come off as your typical everyman one percenter is a joke.
- chiatty - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 9:25 am:
Interesting story, but Rauner strikes me as nothing if not inauthentic.
- Hullabaloo - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 9:25 am:
Rauner:
Grew up in Deerfield, one of the richest suburbs in the Midwest.
His father was a senior VP at Motorola, so he had a wealthy upbringing and the best primary schooling.
He attended Dartmouth and Harvard.
He lives in the richest town in the state (Winnetka).
He surrounds himself with equally privileged and educated people.
Yet, he thinks downstaters are so stupid that they’ll buy his “drawl and Carhartt” schtick.
It’s insulting.
- Frenchie Mendoza - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 9:25 am:
It’s an affectation. The wardrobe, the lingo. It’s all calculated as part of an image.
Rauner is one of the most transparently untruthful people I’ve ever seen. I’ve never met him. I’m not interested in “having a beer” with him. He’s phony, he’s not as smart as he thinks he is, and he’s one of — if not the — least productive governors in the past 50 years.
I hope Obama turns down his dumb beer offer. I’d rather see Obama have a beer with Cullerton and Madigan.
- Thoughts Matter - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 9:29 am:
So, he believes that in the private sector, people could choose not to do business with him and appearances mattered. Now that he’s governor, he believes people don’t get a choice and appearances don’t matter?
Co-equal branches of government. Businesses that can choose whom to do business with, what states to locate.
Appearances still matter.
- Stones - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 9:29 am:
Wish I could hear Rauner’s explanation for his comment about you working for Mike Madigan. I was a Senate page in the early ’80’s so I guess that makes me a protégé of Phil Rock?
- Collinsville Kevin - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 9:30 am:
Today, consolidate all state IT functions, tomorrow privatize them. All part of governin’.
- Independent retired lawyer, journalist - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 9:31 am:
Gee. Was he contrivin’ then, or is he contrivin’ now? How do you know??
- Roadiepig - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 9:31 am:
$6 billion in saving from the Runaground agenda now? Interesting- isn’t that about the amount of revenue lost when the tax increase went away? Can’t wait to see just how he came up with that math to figure his savings
- GOP Extremist - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 9:31 am:
I wonder, does he plan on talking like a fool when he’s whoo’n all these companies from Texas and Indiana??
- Wensicia - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 9:31 am:
So Rauner styles himself as Jed (JD) Clampett, the good old home boy of the North Shore? I don’t believe it.
- hisgirlfriday - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 9:33 am:
So he ran for office on his business record and knowhow under the notion that we will be better off for him to run the state like a business but he is saying businessman Rauner was really a charade and he wants to preside as governor in the manner that business people wouldn’t want to do business with him? Huh?
- And I Approved This Message - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 9:34 am:
He makes it sound like he was held against his will in Downton Abbey for the past 30 years. Is there anything authentic about this man?
- Oswego Willy - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 9:35 am:
I do, 100%, believe the “image” issue he had with his partners.
His own partners might have been really sayin’…
“Not one person believes that a man owning 9 homes and clouts his denied, Winnetka-living, daughter into Payton Prep drives that ‘prop’ car, or dresses like a caricature. Either give up the schtick, or know we can see right through you, with that ‘Deerfield upbringin’, Dartmouth and Harvard learnin’ background’ isn’t the real you. We won’t tolerate it.”
Maybe his partners weren’t upset with the “real Bruce”, maybe they weren’t tolerant of the “phony caricature”.
Right? Exactly right(?)
- Fusion - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 9:36 am:
==Total increased revenue and state and local government savings, he believes, are about $6 billion.==
Just throw out a number and see if it sticks. Unreal.
- Mongo - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 9:38 am:
His “g” rationale is total BS. Speaking with precision helps people understand your message. Dropping the g is a facade that for some reason, he thinks helps him.
- Anon221 - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 9:38 am:
If the g-droppin’ is how he is most comfortable speakin’, that seems to be contradicted in many of his speeches when he starts to take a hardline on an issue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXaqQMq8Jl0
From Rich’s article: ” Rauner told me he couldn’t talk like he wanted and wear what he wanted when he was a businessman because nobody would want to do business with him.”
I thought he is the self-proclaimed CEO of Illinois, and he was going to run Illinois like a business… So it’s gonna be “casual day” for the next three years???
- chi - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 9:38 am:
If he was affectatin’ then ‘n bein’ his honest self now, maybe he should go back to affectatin’; it gets him better results.
- x ace - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 9:40 am:
Counterfeit
- Mittuns - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 9:41 am:
Swig of pinot for the governin’ man.
- Daniel Plainview - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 9:41 am:
Lyin’
- GOP Extremist - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 9:41 am:
Mama says, “phony is as phony does.”
- Lucky Pierre - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 9:42 am:
Only in Illinois is a pro business agenda “controversial”and not the status quo that protects trial lawyers and other special interests.
- anonymoose - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 9:43 am:
Not exactly a compelling argument for the Governor’s veracity. Either the Governor is not being honest about himself before his election (his position)or he is not being honest about the man he portrays now.
I know Governor Thompson had different demeanors depending on whether he was in Centralia or Chicago. The difference is Governor Thompson was more subtle - there was no walking around barefoot reciting passages from “Huckleberry Finn.” I mean gee, sounds like Rauner’s wife almost busted a gut from the Gov. being called out.
- Cubs in '16 - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 9:43 am:
I’m less concerned with what he says and how he says it than what he does and how he does it. If he would do a whole lot less actin’ and more doin’ that’d be great.
- AnonymousOne - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 9:45 am:
This is Illinois. Who does he think talks this way? No one I know does. They do in the southern states, though but that’s not us. It is offensive that he has some stereotyped image that he is targeting with this language.
- Langhorne - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 9:45 am:
So, he puts out his “numbers”, and they lie there until you point out they amount to a paltry $510 mil/1.4%.
Asked about it, he seems to act like he doesnt know that blogger, but he does know he is wrong–and worked for madigan.
Gotta get the story back on track, so the numbers reappear, having grown from $510 mil to $6.0 Bil. Magic.
Rauner is a low-information, passionate, persistent salesman. He didnt know his own numbers then, and wont know the new numbers, just the conclusion–hes right, youre wrong.
Thompson or edgar woulda said they know miller, there must be some mistake. Ryan woulda called and chewed you out. Quinn would have babbled for 15 minutes about the state economy.
- LizPhairTax - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 9:47 am:
What’s with the tie thing?
From Chicago Magazine, Nov. 20, 2013:
Jim Sacia, a former Republican legislator from Freeport who retired in October after six terms, recalls once sitting next to the speaker at a committee meeting. “There was a break in the action, and he noticed my tie,” says Sacia. “He started talking about all the different kinds of neckties. Mike knew everything about ties. And he told me he still has every tie he’s ever owned.”
- Nobody Sent - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 9:51 am:
Wow - he really has no respect for anyone outside of his little circle of elites and sycophants. Given his background, his “g” explanation is completely ridiculous and offensive. I suppose his next story is that he actually prefers drinking PBR or Stag beer with the guys down at the mill after the shift ends. He never really cared for that expensive wine. And Morocco, that wasn’t his idea, he wanted to go to Branson. He thinks its real purdy there at Christmastime.
- Anonymous - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 9:51 am:
Independent retired lawyer, journalist @ 9:31 am ==Gee. Was he contrivin’ then, or is he contrivin’ now? How do you know??=
As the old joke about when a lawyer is lying goes, “when his lips are moving.”
- Willow Inn Club - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 9:52 am:
This explanation confirms that Rauner is a complete phony who has nothing but contempt for everyday citizens. I personally do not believe he is “feuding” with Rahm one bit, either.
- LINK - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 9:54 am:
So, while most are concerned over the droppin of the “g’s”, I was more interested in no on the record retraction or apology…just sayin.
- Norseman - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 9:55 am:
Being targeted by Rauner is an honor nowadays.
- Harvest76 - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 9:55 am:
Oh, where to begin?
Is he suggesting that, as governor, he doesn’t feel the need to be taken seriously, or fear others will not want to do business with him?
Second, I personally take offense to this. I am a state of illinois employee. I am not management, just one of the over-educated, and over-paid ‘takers’, a simpleton, a cog in the wheel. Yet, I wear a shirt, tie, and slacks to work everyday. Why? For exactly the reasons the governor appears to disregard about the value of government and how we represent ourselves to the private-sector citizens.
- The Dude Abides - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 9:58 am:
For now, most of the media seems to be exercising patience with Rauner and aren’t calling him out. Rich is the exception. A recent example of this is when Rauner said that the Union was being dishonest when they stated that the Administration had declared an impasse in negotiations. Two days after making that statement Rauner declared an impasse. This stuff happens pretty regularly.
- Streator Curmudgeon - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 10:01 am:
It looks like the commenters aren’t buying it.
Around Streator, folks don’t wear Carhartt jackets because they’re stylish or necessarily comfortable. They wear them because they hold up well on the work site–as in physical labor.
The Carhartt label has come to be associated with blue collar and construction workers. A billionaire who doesn’t do manual labor wearing a Carhartt is an obvious attempt to influence the people who do.
As for dropping his g’s, I have a bad tendency to do that too, although I have a Master’s degree in English. I’m not proud of it and work, usually unsuccessfully, to avoid it.
If you have your eye on the White House, the Billionaire Everyman image may be something you cultivate. Right now we have a billionaire wearing a goofy red baseball cap who never wore a cap in his life. The polls show he’s fooling a lot of them.
Let’s hope the “real” Bruce Rauner doesn’t show up for work this summer barefoot.
- Langhorne - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 10:08 am:
Gov, prove it, show your work. At least give us something that would merit a “B” in grad school. Reasonable assumptions, and verifiable numbers.
Local savings? You really mean the state takes the local share of income tax, and freezes property taxes, but schools and locals can make it up by gutting employee wages and benefits. Drivin’ results. Sweet.
Phony then, genuine now? No, the governor is just a method actor, playing at the role of governor, and he cant escape the affectations.
- Johnnie F. - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 10:09 am:
Show your work!! Here’s how I get to $6 billion:
11.76 years times $510 million = $6 billion.
- justacitizen - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 10:15 am:
Not concerned about dropping the g’s. Wish IL would pass a budget so we can discuss something more substantive.
- DuPage - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 10:20 am:
If Rauner does not like the message, he tends to attack the messenger. Keep up the good work, Rich.
- Oswego Willy - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 10:20 am:
@RonSandack: I’m frustrated 2, but taking steps towards reforming IL more important than short term budget stalemate. - Ron Sandack, 9/28/15
- justacitizen -
Rauner is choosing not to act in a budget, purposely.
Rep. Sandack even tells us that. Gov. Rauner tells us that.
Agenda first. Budget pain? “Oh well… “
- Grandson of Man - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 10:33 am:
I won’t psychoanalyze the guy but it seems strange how someone with so much money seems to be spending a lot of time trying to look and act like a working class guy.
- Nope - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 10:48 am:
Nothing about his contrived G-droppin’ story rings true. I have worked with many executives in rural Illinois and the Southern US and they do not speak that way. Just another lie but I’m more concerned about you Rich if you bought it.
- JoanP - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 10:51 am:
“Yet, he thinks downstaters are so stupid that they’ll buy his “drawl and Carhartt” schtick.”
Apparently, they did buy it. He carried downstate.
- Arthur Andersen - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 10:53 am:
Well, looks like his former partners at GTCR went under the bus right behind you, Rich.
Gonna be a little harder to close the sale next time if the clients know all the guys pushing their product have private jets. Wonder why none of them loaned them out to Bruce during the campaign?
- A guy - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 10:55 am:
This is so much ado about nothing it’s not even funny. Who cares?
- crazybleedingheart - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 10:58 am:
Rich, what’s the story with my disappearing comments?
- crazybleedingheart - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 11:00 am:
While I have you on the line, did Rauner tell you ahead of time that your post-SOTS conversation was going to be entirely off the record?
- Anon221 - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 11:11 am:
As far as private jet ownership goes, he can just borrow Ken G’s.
- Educ - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 11:16 am:
“The governor said he now feels “free” to be himself since he was elected. Mrs. Rauner agreed that his public wardrobe has drastically deteriorated since election day, as has his grammar.”
HE’S. FROM. DEERFIELD.
There is no way his mother let him grow up talking like that, and it’s certainly not what he heard from teachers or peers.
- @MisterJayEm - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 11:23 am:
“This is so much ado about nothing it’s not even funny. Who cares?”
I’m sure we’d all rather discuss the governor’s 2016 budget.
Unfortunately…
– MrJM
- cardsmama - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 11:23 am:
I agree with Hullabaloo. It is very insulting. I am from southeastern Illinois, studied at SIU and pretty certain that I use “ing” very easily. Tired of being talked down to and treated as a third class citizen (state employee)! I think his comments are bull.
- Oswego Willy - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 11:28 am:
===… it’s not even funny.===
You’re right, it’s not funny Bruce Rauner is phony, either for dozens of years, a complete utter phony, or now.
That’s pretty sad, lol
- Dilemma - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 11:31 am:
==I wish I could tell you what happened at my subsequent meeting with Rauner, but I can’t because it was completely off the record. ==
Did you have an otherwise enjoyable evening? I think people may disagree on many things, but on a personal level get along. I only know the Governor from his public persona, and am curious to hear whether your time “off the record” was enjoyable. It would be nice to know that he was a nice and affable man, regardless of politics.
- Rich Miller - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 11:33 am:
===curious to hear whether your time “off the record” was enjoyable===
Some of it was very enjoyable. Some of it wasn’t at all enjoyable.
But it was productive overall.
- Frenchie Mendoza - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 11:33 am:
I think all this — everything — points to the simple fact that Rauner doesn’t care what anybody says or does. He doesn’t care about support. He doesn’t care about allies. He doesn’t care about money. He doesn’t care about the responsibilities of the office.
He. Does. Not. Care.
That’s the simplest explanation. In this case, it has nothing to do with his dumb clothes or his dumb language. He doesn’t care. He’s a miserable, small-minded guy. He’s not curious. He doesn’t care about how things work. He doesn’t care that people are suffering. They’re not him — or his family — so for Rauner any suffering here might as well be suffering in a galaxy away.
He. Does. Not. Care.
- wordslinger - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 11:35 am:
–Rauner told me he couldn’t talk like he wanted and wear what he wanted when he was a businessman because nobody would want to do business with him. At one point, he said, his business partners even asked him not to drive his lousy old car to company outings because it was an embarrassment to them.–
Heartbreakin’.
Havin’ to live the lie all those years for hundreds of millions of dollars. All those years of matriculatin’, bankruptin’ bustin-outin.’
A sad little caterpillar in a one-percent cocoon, all the while a bumpkin-butterfly yearnin’ to fly free. It’s like the Caitlyn Jenner story.
- Neveranonymous - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 11:36 am:
If a man will speak to you in such an obviously contrived way, why would you believe anything else about him is genuine? Isn’t he likely to have no problem deceiving you? This isn’t a case of someone trying to put his best foot forward.
- Honeybear - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 11:38 am:
Rauner better show his work this time on the 6 Billion projection. SHOW YOUR WORK OR NO CREDIT!!
- My New Handle - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 11:45 am:
From my early journalism days, I was always suspicious of “off the record” remarks. Those remarks then cannot be used in further investigation or critique of the subject on whatever those remarks concerned, very annoying and in a way disrespectful to the public that a journalist serves. I did think that it was odd Mrs. Rauner was apparently in the room. Who else besides Rich and the Rauners were there?
- Liberty - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 11:45 am:
Oh please, I saw him over at the mansion the other day changin the oil on his van. I was a honkin and shoutin “great job govinin” and he was a wavin.
Keep on Raunerin along.
- crazybleedingheart - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 11:54 am:
==Rich, what’s the story with my disappearing comments?==
I ask because you don’t say anything when it happens, they’re still visible to me, and I don’t necessarily know you’re taking them down.
So I have no idea how many of my comments are invisible to others.
And you apparently don’t want to explain.
Your blog, your secret rules.
- anonymoose - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 11:59 am:
This Gov’s a Hazzard (Vanilla does a much better job of this)to the tune of “Dukes of Hazzard”
Just’a good ol’ Gov
Never meanin’ no harm.
Beats all you never saw
‘Cause there’s no budget law
Since the day he was sworn.
Staightnin’ those Dems
Flatnin’ those bills
Someday the voters might get him
But AFSCME never will
- Sue - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 12:14 pm:
Rauner’s union-bustin’ trickle-down economic policies will precipitate the dawn of the extinction of all the real middle class g-droppin’ motorcycle ridin’ Carhartt wearin’ folks.
Real middle class guys (Da Bears!) will be just a memory - the end of an era - so I guess it’s up to the governor to continue the tradition.
- sal-says - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 12:27 pm:
== The governor said he now feels “free” to be himself since he was elected. ==
Wife raises a great point. He dressed properly when in business to do the job & make money and get people to pay attention to him.
Now, he’s not in ‘business’, just runnin’ IL so he can dress like a hick. Wife asks: “So, how does he come off to ‘Business People’ he thinks should move into IL?”
- Anon - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 12:31 pm:
Rauner is not alone in dropping his g’s. Obama and Hillary are guilty of doing the same thing too.
- Anonymous - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 12:39 pm:
Love this, Rich!
- walker - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 12:58 pm:
However comfortable Rauner is with this speaking style, many in the public notice the folksiness and hear it as contrived. It’s an attempt to better relate to audiences, when it doesn’t come naturally.
Yes, Hillary makes the same mistake, but not continually.
No biggie. At least he didn’t bring a banjo.
- Anon 2 - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 1:06 pm:
So he talks one way to people he views as peers and another way to downstaters?
- Bill F. - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 2:08 pm:
I mean, look, I’m sure there is a level of satisfaction by Team Bruce every time people get worked up about “Folksy Bruce” instead of “Isn’t actually interested in governing Bruce.”
That said, they must really think people are incredibly stupid to believe any of that nonsense.
- Kitty Carlisle - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 2:25 pm:
==Now, he just wants to be himself==
As others have said, if you’ve spent your entire adult life being a phony, it would seem difficult to suddenly stop.
- Kitty Carlisle - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 2:31 pm:
==No biggie. At least he didn’t bring a banjo.==
Don’t give him any ideas. OTOH, if Madigan had a guitar, we could get all Deliverance’d up…
- sal-says - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 2:50 pm:
== - Frenchie Mendoza - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 11:33 am: He. Does. Not. Care. ==
EXACTLY.
As I wrote to my local Repub GA members a couple of weeks ago:
“Apparently, for YOUR Republican Governor, this is merely a game to win at any and all costs. At the end, regardless of what he destroys in IL, his lifestyle will NOT CHANGE ONE BIT. He will ride off to one of his mansions and leave the destruction all behind. You will likely still be here. Clearly, he doesn’t care about IL nor the IL Republican Party.”
- Mama - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 3:09 pm:
Rich, I’m happy to hear your beer meeting was productive and partly enjoyable.
- Anon - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 3:40 pm:
I’d seen the bit about working for MJM before and assumed it was true, so I guess it’s good to clear that up.
As others have noted, if something fits Rauner’s worldview he tends to just go with it rather than bother with fact checking.
As far as the Gs, we’ll see how Hillary sounds in the southern states. And Rauner probably enjoys tweaking the Chicago media.
- @MisterJayEm - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 3:53 pm:
I believe that comments that are in “moderation” due to the automatic filters are visible to the author, but comments that have been Rich-blasted are not visible to the author.
The best way to avoid the moderation-bot is to avoid prohibited language and not use too much html.
– MrJM
- Rich Miller - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 4:03 pm:
===Your blog, your secret rules. ===
There’s no secret here. When you write “a liar and a garden variety thief” it ain’t gonna make the cut.
And when you whine about it, you could get banned.
So stop whining.
- Bumble Bee - Monday, Feb 1, 16 @ 9:14 pm:
Think of It’s a Wonderful Life
The Savings and Loan had a weak back office. (I hope Uncle Billy didn’t continue to make the daily deposits.)
Potter had the the real bank profit oriented but he still wanted total power and control. Potter was honest about who he was. Almighty Bruce tries to camouflage himself but I find Potter the more genuine character. For Illinois it’s lookin like we will become Raunerville unless some angles still need wings.
- sal-says - Tuesday, Feb 2, 16 @ 10:09 am:
== As he told reporters, Rauner will be issuing revised projections. Total increased revenue and state and local government savings, he believes, are about $6 billion. ==
raunner ‘believes’ !
“Pick a number, any number, just make it bigger than what Miller called me out for. Uhhh, but not TOO big; has to be believable.”
LOL if it wasn’t so sad.