46 Comments - Cheryl44 - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 9:24 am: Is this like Cruz telling Texas O’Rourke is going to ban barbecue? - Arsenal - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 9:26 am: 49 days left and Rauner is still trying to cobble together his base. Or maybe he’s just giving up and this is all about saving a few Republicans in Southern Illinois. - Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 9:29 am: ===“Pritzker has publicly called for a ban on hadngun sales, a ban on sporting rifle sales, and a 100 % tax on ammunition. Pritzker is a gun grabber of the first order.”=== Asking… is ANY of this true? Is this making Rauner more likable? Rauner is 25 points under water, without rehabbing himself, where can a constituency be found? Rauner sounds like an unraveling candidate with a candidate trying anything because Rauner is losing the messaging about himself… or as I like to say… people realize they don’t like Rauner, and aren’t coming back. - Retired Educator - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 9:30 am: Does he just make this stuff up as he goes along? He has alienated large segments, of what is supposed to be his base. “The Other Guy is Worse” just won’t work. Everyone knows he has nothing positive to run on.( He is toast.) - wordslinger - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 9:30 am: If Texas is over the Illinois border, I guess Pritzker can be called a “gun-grabber.” But in the Honest World, don’t you actually have to propose taking away guns to be considered a “gun-grabber?” Late September, and Rauner is still trying to shore up his right flank and get back Ives voters. At this point, he’s running against McCann more than he is Pritzker. Not enough votes at that end for a winning plurality. - Keyrock - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 9:31 am: Is Bruce afraid JB will take away the gun from Bruce’s Woody-from-Toy Story costume? I understand how scary that would be for Bruce. - zatoichi - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 9:32 am: Flailing much? - Grandson of Man - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 9:34 am: Madigan and the local government taxing bodies he controls. Iowa and Wisconsin have much higher marginal state income tax rates than Illinois. Did Rauner at least put on his worker costume yesterday? - slow down - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 9:39 am: Rauner is starting to go down the same path that Mark Kirk did in his final month or two on the campaign where his comments became increasingly unhinged and embarrassingly desperate. - City Zen - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 9:43 am: “Pritzker is a gun grabber of the first order.” JB is not eligible for Tier 1 gun grabber benefits. - Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 9:43 am: ===…Mark Kirk did in his final month or two on the campaign…=== When conservatives “turn” on ya, and you act in ways that are silly and foolish, we see the toll it takes when you’re being “Kirked” - Thomas Paine - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 9:44 am: Fact check: Pritzker did call for a Federal ban on handgun sales and 100 percent tax on handgun ammunition….20 years ago when he ran against Jan Schakowsky in the Democratic Primary in one of the most liberal districts in the nation. Pritzker does support a ban on assault rifles, whilch the NRA now refers to as “modern day sporting rifles,” which I guess is true if shooting a deer 150 times in one minute is your idea of sport. Rauner did not even include the weak adjective “modern day”, suggesting JB wants to ban all sporting rifles, including the sport of hunting. As for the “gun grabber” title, Pritzker really has not made firearms regulation a central theme of his campaign. Given the 20 year lag in the handgun proposal, the sweeping policy implication chasm between a federal and state gun ban, no handgun proposal as a gubernatorial candidate, Mia characterization of an assault weapons ban as a hunting rifle ban, and lack of any real evidence of zeal rising to the level of “gun-grabber,” …I have no choice but to rate this one as “93 percent false.” That said, JB ought to be at a shooting range with Joel Brunsvold next week. - Rich Miller - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 9:44 am: ===worker costume yesterday?=== Shirt, tie no jacket. First time I remember seeing that combo. - XDNR - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 9:46 am: This pretty well sums up what Rauner has done best the past four years - lying. - Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 9:46 am: ===Shirt, tie no jacket.=== Were the sleeves rolled? Gettin’ to work? Rhetorical, not inquiring. - Annonin' - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 9:48 am: What happened? Rest of the Village People ensembles at the cleaners? - Illinois Resident - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 9:52 am: Hey Bruce, what have you done in the last 4 years again? - Roman - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 9:56 am: Rauner tosses another shovel of dirt on his strategy to win moderate suburban women. Though, this might help Rauner pull conservative votes McCann and sew up second place, which would be awesome if we could make win, place, and show bets on the governors race. - morningstar - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 10:02 am: Rauner is a straw-grasper of the first order. - Grandson of Man - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 10:02 am: Per a quick google, Pritzker reportedly supported a handgun ban when he ran for Congress in the late 1990’s. That’s not the case now, per his campaign website. Rauner legalized taxpayer-funded abortions, so there’s that. Paging candidate McCann… Bruce is becomin’ real divisive these days, playin’ identity politics and pittin’ people of the state against each other. - Joe Bidenopolous - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 10:05 am: ===That said, JB ought to be at a shooting range with Joel Brunsvold next week.=== That would be more than a little difficult… - Steve - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 10:07 am: It wouldn’t matter if every word were true. In Illinois a significant part of the voting public thinks only police officers should be allowed to own guns. Even more Laquan Mcdonald situations wouldn’t change many voters minds. Rauner better come up with a better message. - Jocko - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 10:07 am: First JB was installing GPS devices in your car. Now he’s grabbing your guns. I’m beginning to think Philip K. Dick was hired on as a campaign consultant. - Michelle Flaherty - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 10:09 am: When did Public Radio start running campaign ads? Reading the Rauner press release and playing the soundbites isn’t journalism. - Anon0091 - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 10:12 am: Thomas Paine is 100% correct about being 93% false. The idea that JB wants to ban rifles is just absurd…but it is the silly season and he’s losing by 17 so what do you expect. - Henry Francis - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 10:15 am: Desperado, why don’t you come to your senses? You been out ridin’ fences for so long now Oh, you’re a hard one But I know that you got your reasons These things that are pleasin’ you Can hurt you somehow - Nick Name - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 10:19 am: Does Rauner have a Carhartt tinfoil hat? - JoanP - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 10:22 am: “if shooting a deer 150 times in one minute is your idea of sport” Nah, I hate finding bullets in my venison sausage. - Anonymous - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 10:23 am: This is definitely going to help Rauner in Naperville and Highland Park. - Streator Curmudgeon - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 10:23 am: == “that corrupt machine, that’s caused you guys to have the highest property taxes in America” == Maybe somebody can explain this to me. I just looked at last year’s property tax bill, and there are NO state agencies on it. County, township, city, and school district. How would Chicago cause downstaters to have high property tax bills? How would anybody in a state office, like Madigan and Raoul, cause anyone to have high property taxes? - Thomas Paine@ - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 10:37 am: @Joe Biden Yes and my apologies, the interview was in the Quad Cities, I was thinking of Ted. Sorry Brunsvolds! - cornbilly - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 10:38 am: Cover his tracks all you want, JB is as anti-gun as they come. - thoughts matter - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 10:49 am: Stop, just stop. This goes for the Ives post too. I’m very turned off by campaigns that just throw whatever misleading inflammatory rhetoric they can find out there. What’s even worse is the voters that believe every word of it because it fits in with their mind-set. How are we ever going to get good government when we elect people solely because we believed what they said about the other guy? - RNUG - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 11:06 am: Guess I’ll have to give up my NRA membership since I’d vote for JB before I would vote for Rauner. /s - A guy - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 11:14 am: ===Iowa and Wisconsin have much higher marginal state income tax rates than Illinois.=== And yet people are leaving our state, and those states are experiencing growth. Just maybe, there’s other taxing policies and factors in play, eh? - Langhorne - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 11:19 am: (Sung to “sailing” by christopher cross) “Flailing” takes me away to where I’ve always heard it could be Just a dream and the wind to carry me And soon I will be free - Trapped in the 'burbs - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 11:35 am: When Rauner comes in 3rd, it will be because of all the conservative voters Madigan controls. - ZC - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 11:35 am: Lord, I hate to give the NRA any ammo, but it certainly is true that 20 years ago now, JB campaigned to ban the sale of handguns when he ran for the open 9th House seat. I was there at the time, I remember his mailers. This is of course now somewhat moot, after _McDonald v. Chicago_, and people should be allowed to change their minds on a topic after 20 years. That one claim -is- true, but I don’t see that dog hunting much. - Da Big Bad Wolf - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 11:52 am: ==How would Chicago cause downstaters to have high property tax bills? How would anybody in a state office, like Madigan and Raoul, cause anyone to have high property taxes?== Like many political ads,it’s all about getting the votes of people too busy with their lives to pay attention. - JS Mill - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 12:03 pm: =Pritzker is a gun grabber of the first order.”= LOL. right. What else do you have off of the punch list? - Anonymous - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 12:33 pm: Stay tuned for the obligatory video of JB coming out of the tall weeds wearing blaze orange, with a duck in one hand and a shotgun in the other. - Anonymous - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 12:58 pm: Thomas Paine, I’ll just have to take ole JB on a Mississippi river duck hunt next fall. He should be able to fund a left over costume in the closet at the governors mansion. Lol - Da Big Bad Wolf - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 1:23 pm: ==Nah, I hate finding bullets in my venison sausage.== I hate finding venison in my bullet sausage. - JDuc - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 3:48 pm: Regardless of his statements….JB will try and do an assault rifle ban and he will try to do a magazine capacity (10) limit. - Motambe - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 9:59 pm: Thomas Paine, define “assault rifle.” I have a very fine assault rifle, a 1903 Springfield, US Caliber .30. That is the rifle my great uncles used in France in 1918 to shoot German officers at 900 yards. It is a sporting rifle that I use for target shooting and an occasional varmint hunting on western hunting trips. Same goes for the AR-15’s that my son and I build. They are sporting rifles used for target shooting, often as a family gathering, and for varmint shooting out west. And we don’t shoot animals 150 times. Oh, and we build carbine versions for police officers that are higher quality, more accurate, and lower cost than they can buy retail. I know a lot of people who don’t like guns; my advice to them is then don’t buy one. - justacitizen - Tuesday, Sep 18, 18 @ 10:16 pm: I’m not a Rauner sympathizer but I do see some parallels to the never Trumpers. IL is blue. He shot himself in the foot a lot within his own party but selling a conservative agenda in IL is impossible. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.