49 Comments - JS Mill - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 2:52 pm: “Our minority status is an indication of what the people of Illinois really think of us.” Fixed it. - Obamas Puppy - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 2:53 pm: ah the logic of the vanquished - Anonymous - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 2:55 pm: What the Dems will do is planned to drive more Republicans out of Illinois. They will succeed. - Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 2:55 pm: ===“Our minority status in the legislature gives us an opportunity to place the blame squarely where it belongs, on the Democrats who have run this state into a fiscal mess”=== No. “Our minority status in the legislature indicates that voters weighed and measured Rauner, Rauner enablers, and far right candidates and the voters were found wanting… wanting not Illinois Republicans. ” - Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 2:57 pm: ===What the Dems will do is planned to drive more Republicans out of Illinois. They will succeed.=== 1) pick a name. 2) explain Minnesota, Vermont… - Turner - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 2:59 pm: From the article: “We have a party platform,” she said. “If leaders and candidates would agree to uphold the well-thought-out tenets of the Republican Party platform, there would be no division.” Translation, if you don’t agree with me 100% stay out so we have no division. - Iggy - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 2:59 pm: Back to the way it used to be, Throw your hands up and scream about taxes being too high, and do nothing. a real comfortable spot for a lot of these folks. - Montrose - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 3:01 pm: Nothing says “I care about the well being of the people of Illinois” like a blame strategy. - Smitty Irving - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 3:03 pm: So, James R Thompson, Jim Edgar, Pate Philip, and Lee Daniels are Democrats? - Al - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 3:05 pm: Ives is my Bill Cosby replacement. Her spoken words always make me laugh. Just precious. Thank you Rich. I wish I had time to travel and catch her comedy stand up act some Saturday night. - jim - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 3:05 pm: she’s so wrong. Dems have done a great job. - wordslinger - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 3:06 pm: Opportunity? That’s all the Ives/tronc/IPI GOP types have done for at least 20 years. What’s that got them? The worst beatdown of an incumbent governor in Illinois history and the smallest GA minorities in a generation. Keep up the good work. Enjoy your solidly safe GOP gerrymandered seats — those of you who will get one. (There will be fewer in the future). Feel free to continue to collect your pay and set your hair on fire as much as you want. Governing obviously ain’t your bag, anyway. - Norseman - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 3:06 pm: Ok. Since you’ve recognized your legislative impotency, save taxpayer money on per diems by staying home. Caucus staff can generate the press releases. - Annonin' - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 3:07 pm: Yikes 3 final floor speeches. Prayers for the poor whack jobs who will become the Audience of Tomorrow - Commonsense in Illinois - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 3:09 pm: @Smitty You omitted George Ryan and Ronald Reagan…Neither could win the Republican Primary today, either. - Anonymous - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 3:10 pm: She and Drury should totally open a think tank. - GOPgal - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 3:11 pm: And Jeanne Ives decided the best way to confront those fiscal problems during her gubernatorial run was to spend a big chunk of the millions she had in contributions on a television ad featuring a man in a dress. Got it. Next! - Demoralized - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 3:17 pm: ==They will succeed.== Is that what Republicans will do now. Take their ball and go home? We just got rid of one giant victim in Governor Rauner. Now we still have to listen to more victim nonsense? I suggest some of you grow up. - Wheaton Warrior - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 3:17 pm: I am so excited to no longer be represented by Ives. - Steve - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 3:18 pm: It’s a true statement , however, that doesn’t mean higher taxes and more regulations will not drive out more Republicans from Illinois. - Demoralized - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 3:21 pm: ==will not drive out more Republicans from Illinois.== Then go already. Stop whining and go. Because I’m tired of hearing about it. If “Republicans” (because I think such a claim is absolute nonsense - nobody is leaving because they are a Republican and a Democrat is in office) want to leave then go. - Anonymous - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 3:21 pm: What Republicans have done is drive Republicans out of the Republican party. They have succeeded. - Grandson of Man - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 3:25 pm: Lol, your party and so-called leader, Mr. Moneybags, tried that already, big time. And it failed, big time. - Ducky LaMoore - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 3:25 pm: See Rauner, Bruce. Now I used to be an old-school Republican. But look at the Thompson, Edgar (specifically the Ramp), and George Ryan. Massive government expansion over the Thompson and Ryan years. Massive. Blago ignored everything. Quinn did what he could but was not effective enough. And then Rauner destroyed us with his budget hostage situation. Democrats responsible for fiscal mess? Learn your history, Jeanne, or just be another (R) in fantasy land like I expect you’ll be. - lakeside - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 3:31 pm: Blame is the only opportunity Ives and Rauner saw these last few years. It’s why neither of them will be governor in a week. Another much-welcomed goodbye. - Smitty Irving - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 3:31 pm: @commonsense Was thinking of specific actions / votes those 4 took in relation to pensions … - Just Me 2 - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 3:31 pm: Our minority status absolves us of having to actual govern, which is clearly something we are incapable of doing. - Colin O'Scopey - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 3:32 pm: Yes, exactly Jeanne, because being a “blame-thrower” instead of a problem-solver is really what’s in the state’s best interest, no? - Anonymous - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 3:36 pm: Illinois is not Minnesota Illinois is certainly not Vermont It’s all in the hands of the Dems, let’s watch how they solve things. Hopefully better than they have solved the issues of Chicago. - Moby - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 3:36 pm: For some reason, Jeanne seems like the type of person who has demanded to speak to a few restaurant managers in her day. - Steve Rogers - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 3:37 pm: Illinois had a 3% flat tax from 1990 to 2010. Imagine if someone had the coconuts to raise it to 3.5% or 4% at some point during that 20 year window, AND be responsible with all that extra revenue going to pensions, roads, schools. (Throws water on face), ok, I’m back to reality. - Dirty Red - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 3:39 pm: Ma’am, thank you for your military and public service. To your ability to adequately gauge public perception well enough to win higher office in Illinois: Scott Lee Cohen’s record is better than yours. Have a nice day. - SuburbanRepublican - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 3:40 pm: This is the mentality that has put the GOP in the minority. We need more pragmatic members of the GOP caucus that are interested in more than lambasting the other side but can work with the majority where possible to advance good bipartisan policies, but sadly that’s not what most of the GOP caucus members will do. - Anonymous - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 3:41 pm: She managed to keep from being fragged during her service, so she clearly has her wits about her.. - Colin O'Scopey - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 3:44 pm: With apologies to Aaron Sorkin and the writers of “The American President”: We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them. And whatever your particular problem is, I promise you Jeanne Ives is not the least bit interested in solving it. She is interested in two things, and two things only : Making you afraid of it, and telling you who’s to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you lose elections. You gather a group of middle age, middle class, middle income voters who remember with longing an easier time, and you talk to them about family and Christian values and character and you…scream about patriotism. You tell them Democrats are to blame for their lot in life. And you go on the House floor and make everyone snore. - VanillaMan - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 3:47 pm: Ah - no. Victimhood ain’t sainthood concerning political power. - Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 3:47 pm: ===Illinois is not Minnesota Illinois is certainly not Vermont=== … and yet, their “high taxes” aren’t scaring away people. What *exactly* do Dems do to drive Republicans away? Be specific… as you pick a name. - Suburbanon - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 3:58 pm: Years ago I supported Ives for State Rep just to get her off the Wheaton City Council, thinking she would disappear in Springfield. Boy was I wrong. Although I have this fantasy she will disappear for good this time, I doubt it will happen. Proft will likely find her an undeserved soapbox. - illini - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 4:11 pm: Is her 15 minutes of fame up yet and when will she become yet another embittered losing candidate who has nothing relevant to add to the current discourse? - Lester Holt’s Mustache - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 4:28 pm: ==Is her 15 minutes of fame up yet and when will she become yet another embittered losing candidate who has nothing relevant to add to the current discourse?== Yes, and right after the primary loss to Rauner earlier this year - Flapdoodle - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 4:31 pm: Ms. Ives’ leadership instructors at West Point must be so very proud of her, stepping to the front this way . . . reminds me of the Month Python “run away, run away” bit. - DeseDemDose - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 4:56 pm: Jeanne Ives decided the best way to confront those fiscal problems during her gubernatorial run was to spend a big chunk of the millions she had in contributions on a television ad featuring a man in a dress. Sums up Jeanne. - Cheryl44 - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 5:03 pm: Is that her audition to be a commentator on Fox News? - Huh? - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 6:21 pm: “Our minority status in the legislature gives us an opportunity to place the blame squarely where it belongs, on the Democrats who have run this state into a fiscal mess” How is this any different than what have the IGOP been doing for the past 4 years? Which party had the governor who went 2 years without a budget? Which party had a governor who torpedoed a grand bargain that was being negotiated by his party leadership in the Senate? I’ll hang up while you ponder your answer. - Huh? - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 6:31 pm: So the incessant blame campaign by 1.4% for the past 4 years is just a preamble to more of the same? This is so tiring. - Amalia - Tuesday, Jan 8, 19 @ 6:39 pm: Maybe Ives will head back to Chicago with some aldermanic candidates and wail about those identify cards. - "Old Timer Dem" - Wednesday, Jan 9, 19 @ 6:22 am: Madigan’s legacy is at stake these next few years. How he handles our state’s fiscal problems will play significantly on how history judges his reign as Speaker. - truthteller - Wednesday, Jan 9, 19 @ 8:18 am: Illinois (48) is 3rd from the bottom of states MOST dependent on Federal tax monies. How come we don’t hear any conservative talk about lack of federal program money coming into Illinois? - low level - Wednesday, Jan 9, 19 @ 8:27 am: Bye Felicia. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.