All about the messaging
Monday, Jul 11, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller
* The Southern’s editorial board asked Rauner what he would have done differently if he could do it all over again…
The Southern: The past 18 months have been tough on everybody, especially those in human services. What do you think you could have done differently looking back?
Rauner: “The simple fact is that we need to change, and the General Assembly is controlled by a super-majority that doesn’t want to change. They have controlled the system — Speaker Madigan and all the folks who have been loyal to him, and keep him in office and the legislators that do what he tells them to do — they are in the super majority and they’ve never had to compromise. They’ve never had to negotiate and they have never had to change. But they have created a system that is broken. We are losing our jobs. Our taxes are too high. Our family incomes are too low, and we have cronyism and corruption. The system needs to change. We should have had this done in a couple months. This has taken us 18 months. Finally, members of the General Assembly are saying we support reform and we will vote on it after the November election. It took too long, but we are getting there.
The Southern: What about you specifically? Do you think you could have done anything different?
Rauner: That one thing we should somehow figure out how to do is let the people of Illinois know what is really at stake and is really going on.
Your average person in Illinois doesn’t really know what workman’s compensation is, but it is a big deal that we have to change. Your average person doesn’t know much unfunded mandates are coming out of Springfield dictating how much they have to spend of their property taxes.
We have to do a better job. That is reason I meeting with you and other leaders to get the message out about what is really at stake here and what has to change, and make sure the people of Illinois get involved in the process. That will bring about the change.”
Again, it’s better messaging not a better approach to governing.
- Oswego Willy - Monday, Jul 11, 16 @ 10:29 am:
===Again, it’s better messaging not a better approach to governing.===
This. All day, this.
It’s telling that communications with all these Democrats in the General Assembly isn’t where Rauner sees failure, but it’s communications in a message to the Press and Public that matters.
It’s mind boggling this honesty here.
Rauner wants better “communications” with the Press and Voters than his governing partners.
Says it all.
- illinoised - Monday, Jul 11, 16 @ 10:32 am:
I am hoping the voters send him a message in November, because he has no intention of changing his message.
- Joe Blow - Monday, Jul 11, 16 @ 10:32 am:
22 of last 30 years the state has had a republican governor and yet it is all Madigans fault. Don’t forget Pate ran the senate and Daniels had the house for 2 years ,too many collectivists.
- AlfondoGonz - Monday, Jul 11, 16 @ 10:33 am:
Any laypeople out there insulted that Big Brain thinks you can’t wrap your mind around the idea of worker’s compensation?
- Norseman - Monday, Jul 11, 16 @ 10:34 am:
Yep, it’s about improving the propaganda, not governing.
- @MisterJayEm - Monday, Jul 11, 16 @ 10:35 am:
In a stunning turn of events, Governor Bruce Rauner has shifted his focus to messaging from messagin’!
– MrJM
- Not Rich - Monday, Jul 11, 16 @ 10:36 am:
better messaging: he should walk into a public high school and deliver his message to the teachers..”you make too much money, you should have no rights when it comes to negotiating your salary, work rules, hours worked or retirement benefits” MESSAGE DELIVERED
- Now What? - Monday, Jul 11, 16 @ 10:37 am:
“Remember Jerry. A lie is not lie, if you believe it to be true.”
Thus the way forward is to outspend the other messengers, truth be damned…
- Henry Francis - Monday, Jul 11, 16 @ 10:38 am:
The Guv did not take the job to work with the Dems. The Guv took the job to eliminate the Dems (or at least their power).
His “reforms” aren’t so much to improve the economic condition of the state - rather they are intended to weaken the finances of people/organizations that support the Dems. Reduce their money, you reduce the Dems money. Reduce the Dems money, you reduce their power.
Another way to reduce the Dems power is to get them voted out of office. Hence the nonstop campaigning and bad mouthing.
This Guv just ain’t interested in governing. He’s not interested in co-equal branches of government. He’s not interested in balance of power. This is a hostile takeover. That is what he does.
- Fusion - Monday, Jul 11, 16 @ 10:38 am:
==Our taxes are too high.==
False. They’re not high enough. That’s why the bill backlog is so huge.
- Honeybear - Monday, Jul 11, 16 @ 10:41 am:
Plain and simple we need to figure out how to govern around him.
I fear the only way to do this is to score substantial wins in Nov. That’s a big lift.
- From the 'Dale to HP - Monday, Jul 11, 16 @ 10:44 am:
===The system needs to change.===
Rauner keeps saying this, but he’s still, STILL, light on details of what needs to change. Workers comp, busting unions, and lower taxes? It’s all so vague, still, 18 months in.
I’m not even sure Rauner’s messaging is getting better because he’s failed to lay out any sort of plan other than “those bums are horrible and the rent is too high!” Does your average Illinoisan have any idea of what Rauner is proposing to do? The experts don’t even really know because he hasn’t really proposed anything beyond big vague topics. The refocus on messaging strikes me as yet another attempt to try and hide the fact that emperor has no cloths.
- Wensicia - Monday, Jul 11, 16 @ 10:47 am:
Rauner wouldn’t do anything differently because everything is working out just fine, for him. He doesn’t regret any action he’s taken, or the damage it’s caused to over a million people in this state. But messaging? He feels he needs a better way to message because the people of Illinois just don’t understand his grand vision; they don’t understand his agenda is worth their pain?
How many different ways can you say it’s Madigan’s fault? Hasn’t he used every attack on the Democrats that he can think of already? Stop saying it’s the people of this state that are too naive to understand. Stop hiding behind our supposed ignorance to avoid answering the hard questions on how so many in this state has suffered during your first eighteen months in office, governor.
- AnonymousOne - Monday, Jul 11, 16 @ 10:47 am:
Who Does He Serve ?
- Demoralized - Monday, Jul 11, 16 @ 10:50 am:
I wonder when the Governor is going to grow up and stop blaming everyone else for his failure to govern?
- Michelle Flaherty - Monday, Jul 11, 16 @ 10:51 am:
He should print out all the school mandates, then bring them to a state of the state of budget presentation, drop them on the podium and demand that the State Superintendent of Education tear down the wall.
- northsider (the original) - Monday, Jul 11, 16 @ 10:56 am:
Since Roger Ailes might be available soon, is now the time to premiere the Bruce News Network?
- Langhorne - Monday, Jul 11, 16 @ 10:57 am:
Rauner is incapable of changing his view of the world.
He looks back at a disastrous 18 months of failure, and concludes he needs to do more of what failed. He wants everyone else to change to conform to his views.
Remember, he warned us he is extremely persistent. Where reasonable folks see pain and suffering he has caused, rauner sees a “flattening of spending”.
The average person doesnt understand workers comp, unfunded mandates, etc. they never will, but thats ok. Rauner needs to convince 30 and 60. the average person is not going to become a zealot for rauners issues, just bec he is persistent about it. The general population simply wants a functional government, ya know, with a budget.
- Honeybear - Monday, Jul 11, 16 @ 10:59 am:
,– and we have cronyism and corruption.–
Like destroying a government agency so it can be privatized, only to create more problems because of incompetence? DCEO?
Oh, and yes, changing the name from ILBEDC to Intersect Illinois will really change things. Yes, I feel it will be different this time.
Meanwhile the businesses of Illinois are starving for help surviving. DCEO is gutted and feckless. Too bad businesses. Your business leader Gov Rauner doesn’t care about you.
- Jeff Delanie - Monday, Jul 11, 16 @ 11:25 am:
Anybody tell this guy he won the election and that he needs to govern?
I’ll hang up and listen for my answer.
- Chicago_Downstater - Monday, Jul 11, 16 @ 12:59 pm:
@ AlfondoGonz
“Any laypeople out there insulted that Big Brain thinks you can’t wrap your mind around the idea of worker’s compensation?”
Here’s one!
I must say though I’ve always found the “average people just don’t understand” trick interesting. It let’s the people who agree with you feel smug & subtly insults your opponents.
That being said, I would hazard a guess that calling the average Illinoisan naive is going to bite him eventually. Or maybe he’ll just spin it. Maybe he’ll try blaming Madigan for keeping all of us average Illinoisans in the dark.
- slow down - Monday, Jul 11, 16 @ 1:02 pm:
We all want committed and confident leaders but this man is incapable of self-reflection. You have to be willing and able to learn on the job and 18 months of complete and total failure has taught him nothing.
- West Sider - Monday, Jul 11, 16 @ 7:49 pm:
Len Small has long had Rod Blagojevich by a nose- but Bruce Rauner had come furlongs, and is now closing fast.
- burbanite - Monday, Jul 11, 16 @ 8:45 pm:
He is a “volunteer”. Ugh, isn’t he saving like 750 k a year with the tax rate drop?