56 Comments - Grand Avenue - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 2:28 pm: Rauner was back on with Steve Cochran this morning - did they address the whole Susana Mendoza kerfuffle? https://twitter.com/BruceRauner/status/851794800823152642 - Earnest - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 2:31 pm: *IDP… - Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 2:32 pm: These are the messages that can, “collectively” allow ALL Democrats to get to a simple and powerful Rauner reality. “Bruce Rauner failed, Rauner is campaigning instead of what we elected him to do; Rauner refuses to do his job” They ALL need to realize, attacking each other in April, that’s not helping themselves or Democrats. Raunerism needs to be THE issue, at least until September. Glad to see them these. Good stuff. Now make the case for the narrative. - Grand Avenue - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 2:35 pm: No statement from the Scott Drury Exploratory Committee yet? - Annyong - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 2:37 pm: ==Ameya Pawar to Governor Rauner: ‘Put politics aside and govern’== Wait I like Pawar… but isn’t it a bit hypocritical that he is a elected official who is going around the state politicking and at the same time is saying Rauner isn’t allowed to do the same? - illini - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 2:42 pm: I just turned on KMOX ( never listen to the previous 3 hours of Rush ) and only heard the last part of his interview with Mark Reardon. Once again ( and from a sympathetic host ) - softball questions and no delving, questioning of his statements or any follow up. Imagine how surprised I was to hear that BVR was supportive of the efforts in the Senate to arrive at a budget compromise and how we can only “grow” our state out of this problem by enacting term limits, property tax reform and all the rest of his agenda! Income was not the problem but “Tax Hike Mike” and al those Chicago Dems were to blame. - chi - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 2:53 pm: I would award the daily messaging trophy to the Kennedy team here: “As he flies around the state, we hope he will finally give the people of Illinois an explanation as to why, by virtually every measure, Illinois is in worse shape than when he took office.” “Rauner owes it to the people of Illinois to explain why his Turnaround Agenda is more important than a state budget. While he plays politics, our schools continue to go without the resources they need, the social safety net is being shredded, and violence has become the norm in neighborhoods across the state.” That’s a sharp narrative imo. - Lucky Pierre - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 2:53 pm: I will wait for someone to tell me when was the last time politics was put aside to pass a budget. The budget process is completely political and has been so forever. “Hostage taking” otherwise known as leverage to produce compromise has also been around forever. Mike Madigan does not understand compromise or he would start by working with the minority party in the house and the Governor. If that is too much for him he could compromise with the democratic supermajority in the Senate - don the legend - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 2:58 pm: Hey Lucky, for some reason on my computer your post reads; Blah, Blah, Blah Blah Blah. - Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 2:58 pm: ===Hostage taking” otherwise known as leverage to produce compromise has also been around forever=== Then you agree, Rauner is indeed hurting, purposely, his hostages of higher education and social services. Got it, thank you. ===If that is too much for him he could compromise with the democratic supermajority in the Senate=== Rauner, personally, blew up the Senate “Grand Compromise” This is the first time today you are reminded of the fact Rauner blew up the Grand Compromise, a fact you have been told numerous times. - Ducky LaMoore - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 3:01 pm: ===“Hostage taking” otherwise known as leverage to produce compromise has also been around forever.=== Just ask DB Cooper! - wordslinger - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 3:05 pm: –“Hostage taking” otherwise known as leverage to produce compromise has also been around forever.– Whoa, whoa, whoa, who’s taking hostages? The governor is not — he said so. Control-Alt-Delete and reboot, son. You’re off message. - illini - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 3:07 pm: Willy and LP - you might both be surprised to know the BVR told KMOX less than an hour ago that he was very encouraged about all the progress being made in the Senate negotiations and was hopeful that they could work out the issues. And here I thought he put an end to these negotiations - how did I get this so wrong? - wordslinger - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 3:12 pm: –you might both be surprised to know the BVR told KMOX less than an hour ago that he was very encouraged about all the progress being made in the Senate negotiations and was hopeful that they could work out the issues.– Is that for real? If so, the duplicity is way creepy. - Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 3:12 pm: - illini - Maybe KMOX needs to have Leader Radogno call in and ask her about all the Senate Compromising… - illini - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 3:16 pm: @Willy and @Word - I only heard part of the interview. Sometimes they post interviews with some guests. If I can find it I’ll send the link to Rich. - walker - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 3:18 pm: Budget-making with compromise by political leaders? Well the Ryan, Thompson, Edgar yearly budgets all come to mind. What make this situation unprecedented, is that one side seems to think that not having a budget at all for years, is a viable option, regardless of the damage it does to the state government and its public. - Succinct - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 3:21 pm: IWP put it even more simply on Facebook today: == THINGS GOV. RAUNER IS DOING TODAY: - Campaignin’ - Runnin’ TV ads - Blamin’ everyone else X His job === - btowntruth from forgottonia - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 3:23 pm: And right on cue,Lucky comes in to defend Rauner. - Arock - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 3:25 pm: Tell me what Madigan will compromise on, I say zilch. I guess that has already been proven. - Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 3:29 pm: ===Tell me what Madigan will compromise on, I say zilch. I guess that has already been proven.=== Tell that to Thonpson, Edgar, and Ryan. There’s even recent quotes you can find where these governors plead with Rauner to find 60 and 30 and understand what isn’t possible and doing the doable. Also - Arock -… When Rauner shows he has 60 House votes, 60 House members on the stairs and Madigan is stopping a compromise like Rauner did in the Senate, you just point those thigd out. K? K. - Former hillrod - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 3:30 pm: Lucky Pierre to Bruce Rauner is as Lambchop is to Shari Lewis. Ummm does this qualify as sock puppetry? - Texas Red - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 3:31 pm: Rauner is crossing the state with a message of hope, showing off success stories such as NOW foods which has had explosive growth over the past few years. It might be political but he is also promoting Illinois in a positive light. Both houses are on “Spring Break” so any budget talks are on hold till after Easter anyway. - Lucky Pierre - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 3:33 pm: Yes one thing Madigan will comprise on is pushing the problems on to the next generation who either can’t vote yet or is not in power (tier 2) he is very good at that - Lucky Pierre - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 3:36 pm: What is new is calling the usual give and take of politics hostage taking. Madigan sure does understand the take, he need work on the give - Former hillrod - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 3:40 pm: I think LP just proved my point - Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 3:41 pm: - Lucky Pierre -… Former Gov. Ryan… ===“The governor is the top guy. He is the leader. House Speaker Mike Madigan is not. The governor has to make things happen. If he doesn’t get everything he wants, he’s got to figure out how much he can get. To get something done. He’s got to take the wheel. He’s got to have a plan. It’s like everything in life.”=== Gov. Edgar… ===”He (Rauner) comes from a different background than I do. But I just think it’s very important for a governor, you’ve got to have a good budget and you need it in place,” Edgar told reporters. “You can try to compromise on some issues — and I think there are certain things (Democrats in the Legislature) might give him — but some of the things he’s asking for, they’re not going to give him. They’re just not going to give him.”=== Do the doable. If you’re governor and you’re not doing the doable, you don’t understand Governors Own and drive the bus… - Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 3:42 pm: ===Madigan sure does understand the take, he need work on the give=== Rauner’s vetoes of an evtire budget less K-12 makes clear, Rauner understands what hostages are, that these hostages are his, and Rauner isn’t concerned who is hurt. - Robert the Bruce - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 3:48 pm: Maybe it is too much inside baseball, but I wish the D candidates would hit him more specifically on scuttling the bipartisan compromise that included some of his desired reforms. - The Captain - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 3:51 pm: It was Bruce Rauner’s explicitly stated intention to hold state government hostage to his demands and to put financial pressure on Democratic constituencies to force a wedge between them. It’s unfortunate that each of these statements omits this detail. Rauner has no success to run on so he needs the benefit of the doubt from the voters to not wear the blame. If the Democrats can erode that trust they can defeat him, eroding the trust is the key point. If voters better understood that Rauner intentionally made the state’s financial position worse that would go a long way towards eroding that trust. Missed opportunity. - wordslinger - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 4:00 pm: –I will wait for someone to tell me when was the last time politics was put aside to pass a budget. The budget process is completely political and has been so forever. “Hostage taking” otherwise known as leverage to produce compromise has also been around forever.– LP, I find your new programming fascinating. Gov. Rauner is just doing things like those bad ol’ guys have forever? He’s just like all those other governors, doing things the way they used to? Well that’s a new tune. At what point of historic and unprecedented willful destruction that’s happening right now did your programming kick in and change to “meh, that’s how everyone’s always done it, forever. We’re just like those old guys.” - Earnest - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 4:28 pm: Rauner’s messaging must be seeping into my brain today, because I find myself frustrated with Madigan. Not the Speaker of the House one, but the one that is the leader of the IDP. Wouldn’t take a lot–one brief, cohesive message which resonates with the anti-Rauner themes taken up by the gubernatorial candidates. Could be something for the legislative candidates to build from. Could help his image (slightly) to be seen as focusing on something that matters to people. He’s probably busy playing that 3D chess though. I”m imagining a flyer accusing Rauner of supporting predators because someone on the registry lived in one of the nursing homes managed by his companies one time. I saw a draft or something like it the last election or three. /s, or maybe crabbiness. apologies - Arsenal - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 4:32 pm: The unity of theme here kinda lends credence to my theory that Democrats weren’t lacking an anti-Rauner message, they were like a Gubernatorial candidate. - Skeptic - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 4:34 pm: ““Hostage taking” otherwise known as leverage to produce compromise has also been around forever” So…since Madigan has been around forever, and Rauner is just doing what has been going on all along, you admit that Madigan is doing it right? - wordslinger - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 4:35 pm: –The unity of theme here kinda lends credence to my theory that Democrats weren’t lacking an anti-Rauner message– They were lacking a state party apparatus with any messaging strategy or capabilities. - Grandson of Man - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 4:39 pm: Madigan was willing to compromise by offering more workers comp reform and property tax relief legislation, both nonbudget items. Neither went far enough for Rauner. Property tax reform didn’t include stripping collective bargaining and repealing the prevailing wage at the local government level. That’s an impossible ask, and Rauner must know that. That’s one reason I believe this crisis is willful on Rauner’s part. - don the legend - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 4:54 pm: =Grandson of Man: That’s one reason I believe this crisis is willful on Rauner’s part.= You are being kind by not listing the other dozen reasons or so as to why it is willful. - Lucky Pierre - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 5:01 pm: What are the results of do the doable? We are leading the nation in all kinds of bad things because of this philosophy Quoting “successful” ex Governors one of whom went to prison and the other who was bragged about surplus budgets while ramping pension contributions to the next generation are hardly a good road map to follow Nothing is doable with Speaker Madigan - d.p.gumby - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 5:09 pm: Hmm. His non-campaign tour promoting his non-existent Balance Budget… - Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 5:10 pm: ===What are the results of do the doable?=== Rauner has no budgetary results working within the doable… ===We are leading the nation in all kinds of bad things because of this philosophy=== No. No, we lead the nation in having no budget for 2 years running, going on 3 years. No state has done that. ===Quoting “successful” ex Governors one of whom went to prison and the other who was bragged about surplus budgets while ramping pension contributions to the next generation are hardly a good road map to follow=== … and yet, Rauner begged and pleaded for Edgar to campaign with and for him the last weekend, and it has been suggested that Ryan, who had a working relationship with Madigan to get things passed, try to help Rauner understand how to find a workable relationship with Madigan. I can’t help Rauner is yet to learn 60 and 30. - Robert the Bruce - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 5:12 pm: LP, you may be largely right about Speaker Madigan. “You’ll get nothing and like it!” is what I’ve seen from Madigan for the entirety of the Rauner administration. I think Madigan’s tenure has largely been bad for the state, before and during Rauner. But two points for your consideration. 1) Figuring out how to work with Madigan should have been quite high on Gov. Rauner’s to-do list when he took office. It isn’t as if the Speaker’s power and style are surprises. Rauner failed there. 2) We’ll never find out for sure what Madigan would compromise on, unless Rauner changes course, and fully endorses and works for the Cullerton-Radogno solution. If Rauner did this, I’d expect republicans in the house to fall in line, and the success of the budget/reform compromise would then be up to Madigan. - Chicago Cynic - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 5:20 pm: LP, are you a professional troll or just working on your pro-am status? Pretty much every former GOP governor has called out the current occupant for failure to lead and failure to force a compromise. Your ability to deny the obvious would be admirable if it wasn’t so mind-blowingly disingenuous. - Chicago Cynic - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 5:21 pm: “Nothing is doable with Speaker Madigan.” Well he worked with Speaker Madigan to bail out a Fortune 50 company with BILLIONS in ratepayer money. So there is that. - Chicago Cynic - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 5:23 pm: “I can’t help Rauner is yet to learn 60 and 30.” EXACTLY. As they say in Hamilton, “you don’t have the votes, no, you don’t have the votes.” With or without Speaker Madigan, Rauner isn’t remotely close to either for any of his agenda. - 37B - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 6:01 pm: For what it’s worth (from the Governor who paid down the backlog of bills while maintaining the safety net): “I think it all begins and ends with arithmetic. You’ve got to have enough revenue to equal your expenditures. And I think that’s the first job of the governor is to propose a budget that has adequate revenue to pay for the important expenditures of, not only education, but health care and housing and public safety and social services. So that’s, you know, a real failing of Bruce Rauner.” - Ginhouse Tommy - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 6:02 pm: Kennedy’s question is the thing that will take toll on the Gov. He has nowhere to hide. Keep asking what budget did you propose, where are your jobs that you promised, how is it that other surrounding states are doing well and we’re not? Yes MJM is a pain and a problem but other Govs. have worked with him why didn’t you. Colleges and Universities are in crisis, Don’t you care? His reactions should be classic. - peon - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 6:17 pm: But in more positive news, he is running ahead in the Rauner v Madigan for Speaker 2018 race. - Big jack - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 6:20 pm: I’m not surprised your out campaigning​ Bruce everything up to this point has been an epic failure so you need all the help you can get - Cleric dcn - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 6:36 pm: 2 things come to mind. I looked at polls and the top 10 worst Governors puts Rauner at #6 as the worst. Then thinking in the campaign mode right now I see he loses all the votes of State Employees or most. I think that the percentage of state employees voting is pretty high. Any candidate who would be mindful of State employees is going to pick up a huge voting block. - ShawneeCoal - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 6:43 pm: I was proud so see Kennedy jump into this race but IDK anymore. His downstate coordinator was a former Blago/Quinn guy who was fired by CMS for lying on a job application. So is Kennedy a good judge of character? I sure have questions now!!! - veritas - Tuesday, Apr 11, 17 @ 8:12 pm: A good first salvo for Kennedy. I’m no fan of MM, but any objective assessment of BR’s first term leads to one conclusion: Planned Failure. I can’t think of any political figure in recent memory who is less deserving of reelection. Is it naiveté or hubris? Maybe a lot of both. - VanillaMan - Wednesday, Apr 12, 17 @ 3:20 am: They’re all saying a similar thing, as though it hadn’t been said before. Kennedy’s version is best. But I won’t be able to tolerate another year. Geez, I already tired myself out, reading it in my comments a year ago. Cut to the chase guys. Tell us how many BILLIONS Rauner wasted not doing his job. Don’t tell us that he can’t campaign and gover - tell me how many BILLIONS IN WASTED TAX DOLLARS he’s blown! Focus on Rauner’s waste. Make the message Rauner’s anti-business administration is costing us. - DMAN - Wednesday, Apr 12, 17 @ 8:05 am: What is the General Assembly doing the next 3 weeks to pass a budget ? - Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Apr 12, 17 @ 8:10 am: ===What is the General Assembly doing the next 3 weeks to pass a budget ?=== They may be waiting for Rauner to fulfill his obligation under Article VIII, Section 2 (a). You have no point when Rauner proposes grossly unbalanced budgets, phony and a sham to the Comstitution. Rauner said he wasn’t part of the Status Quo. Well… - Lucky Pierre - Wednesday, Apr 12, 17 @ 8:48 am: Legislators think they deserve a two week vacation even though they have accomplished nothing unless you are a fan of bacon and cycling - Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Apr 12, 17 @ 8:59 am: ===Legislators think they deserve a two week vacation even though they have accomplished nothing unless you are a fan of bacon and cycling.=== … and yet, Rauner refuses to submit a balanced budget, refuses to fully fund all of higher education, refuses to pay bills, refuses to honor signed contracts… refuses to be a governor… … while parading around Illinois in costumes these two days, paid for out of the $50 million in his campaign fund, a fund he uses to hold legislators hostage when Grand Compromises exist. Then? Then Rauner blows up a Grand Bargain. So, you the the Raunerites taking off these two weeks are at fault too? That’s fun. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.