* Isabel and I were chuckling about reporters asking the governor if he plans to run for president in four years. I mean, it’s not like he’s gonna use some little press conference somewhere to make such a big announcement.

So, we thought about a better way to get at his thinking and maybe see if it knocked him off his stride a bit and made him somehow take the bait. From earlier today…

Isabel: At this moment in time, what qualities would you like to see in the next Democratic presidential nominee?

Pritzker: Well, gosh, let’s start with I’d like them to hold Democratic values. And you know, there are a lot of things about standing up for the middle class, a lot of things about making sure that we’re addressing their freedoms and protecting them that I think that the next Democratic nominee ought to hold. And so I think we’ve got quite a number of really highly qualified people on the Democratic side. I think you saw some of that the people you know during the last year or two who you know, been pushing back on the proposed agenda of the Trump potential Trump administration at that point, some of those leaders, I think, are terrific people who hold those values.

He’s not bad at this game.

* Another reporter took a crack at it…

Q: With Think Big America, with the Polis group that you put together, with the gun issue, Why should anyone think that you are not running for president in 2028?

Pritzker: [Laughs] That’s kind of funny. I mean, it’s, first of all, it’s 2024. I still have two years left to serve in the term that I’m in as governor. As you all have heard me say time and time again, I love this job and there’s an awful lot about it that I believe I can do to protect people from the problems that seem to want to come from Washington, DC, over the next two years. So I’m looking forward to doing that. And you all should - and you’ve been asking me about re election. I think that’s the relevant conversation.

…Adding… Pritzker was also asked about who he’d like to see as the new Democratic National Committee chair…

I know there are probably four or five people that I’ve heard, whose names I’ve heard. I like all the names that I’ve heard. So I’m not going to make a decision about that now, about who I might support. But I can say we need to do a lot of building across the nation, especially in states where, not just the battlefront states, but I’m talking about states where we need to lift up the Democratic party that has been less competitive than it should be. An example of that would be the Indiana Democratic Party, where there’s an opportunity in Indiana, because it appears to be, anyway, the Democrats are doing better, and the opportunity to elect more to their general assembly and potentially to statewide office.