* Click here for some background. WBEZ yesterday…
David Axelrod, former chief strategist and senior advisor to President Barack Obama in his winning 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns, said if Pritzker harbors White House ambitions, he ought to think hard about leaving Springfield after two terms because of the political volatility that being governor can bring.
“Third terms are notoriously perilous, and things that can go wrong tend to go wrong in third terms,” Axelrod said. “If your attention is divided between running for president, which is a hellacious job in itself, and…dealing with crises at home, that is a very difficult balance to strike.
“I honestly think time may be better spent for him if he wants to run for president, traveling the country and interacting with people and not just speaking, but listening. It would enrich him as a candidate and give him a head start. So you have to balance the risks and rewards of each decision. And in my view, the risks of running again [for governor] are greater than the possible rewards,” said Axelrod, a CNN commentator and host of the political podcast, “The Axe Files.” […]
Democratic political strategist Pete Giangreco had roles in nine presidential campaigns dating back to 1984, including Obama’s two victories and the 1992 and 1996 wins by Democrat Bill Clinton. Like Axelrod, Giangreco sees more time in Illinois’ Executive Mansion as a move fraught with risk for Pritzker if the governor has any desire to seek the White House. […]
“Every time Gov. Pritzker goes to New Hampshire and starts swinging a bat at the president, the president’s going to retaliate,” Giangreco said. “If you have a guy at 1600 Pennsylvania who wakes up every morning trying to figure out how to screw Illinois because the governor said something, that’s like a new dynamic that no one’s ever seen before. It’s like you can do one or the other: You can govern or you can run for president.
“The stakes are too high to try to do both,” Giangreco said.
Rich suggested yesterday that Axelrod and Pete Giangreco might be saying this to boost former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel for governor.
* Gov. JB Pritzker hopped on CNN yesterday and talked about Rich’s speculation…
* The transcript…
Reporter: Is Axelrod right?
Pritzker: David’s a friend of mine. Here’s what I can say, I think he has in mind the idea that his friend Rahm Emanuel would like to run for governor of Illinois. [He] probably wouldn’t run for governor if I were running for reelection. So that’s one thing that I think he’s considering.
The other thing I think he’s suggesting, he’s not wrong. When you talk to people who’ve considered running for a third term, they would tell you that sometimes third terms don’t work out for people. It hasn’t happened very often, but if you look at Jay Inslee in Washington State, he had a fabulous third term and really accomplished quite a lot, and was able to finish a lot of things that he started in his first two terms. So it can happen either way. Frankly, you can have a flub that occurs in your first term or in second, it could happen in your third term. Things happen.
My focus is on lifting up the people of the state of Illinois, advancing the cause of the economy for our state, and making sure that I’m bringing what I have been, I think, for the last six and a half years, which is fiscal stability to a state that really wasn’t stable for many years before
Subscribers know more.
Discuss.
- Macon Deliberations - Wednesday, May 14, 25 @ 4:56 am:
Inslee would have been a cool Democrat nominee in 2020. Would love what he has to say on how to lower factory emissions while
keeping jobs in place. Don’t get me wrong, the >million pounds of nerve damaging hexane emissions released upon Decatur yearly concern me gravely (and inhibits the city’s future growth being frank), it’s just that a lot of people in Decatur are genuinely hanging on by a thread. Also like I said yesterday, Rahm would get clobbered by Manar in a Democrat gubernatorial primary, I think Rahm could win Lake and DuPage county maybe in that matchup and that’s it.
- Macon Deliberations - Wednesday, May 14, 25 @ 5:03 am:
Love to see* sorry also good morning Rich+Isabel, thank you for your impeccable service to our lovely state.
- Excitable Boy - Wednesday, May 14, 25 @ 6:32 am:
He was a lot more pleasant about this than I would have been, but I find it pretty amusing that he called this out on national television.
- Yellow Dog Democrat - Wednesday, May 14, 25 @ 7:22 am:
David Axelrod counselling anyone to spend less time talking and more time listening has got to be a joke, right?
- Hello Friend - Wednesday, May 14, 25 @ 7:24 am:
@Excitable - 100% agree, but to paraphrase Spaceballs I think the governor is trying to shoot across the nose right now, and not up it.
- Norseman - Wednesday, May 14, 25 @ 7:54 am:
JB handled that nicely.
- Leatherneck - Wednesday, May 14, 25 @ 8:20 am:
=David’s a friend of mine. Here’s what I can say, I think he has in mind the idea that his friend Rahm Emanuel would like to run for governor of Illinois.=
Wasn’t Rahm also Rauner’s friend too?
I don’t look for Rahm to get the CTU endorsement if he actually runs.
- Soccermom - Wednesday, May 14, 25 @ 8:24 am:
I can’t imagine Rahm winning DuPage. I mean, I think his opponent just cuts endless ads of Rahm talking about how much he loves Chicago… (And more seriously, I think you are underestimating the numbers of left-leaning Dems in DuPage.)
- Donnie Elgin - Wednesday, May 14, 25 @ 8:35 am:
Axelrod has long been a fanboy of Rahm.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4988766-axelrod-pushes-for-rahm-emanuel-as-dnc-chair/
- ZC - Wednesday, May 14, 25 @ 9:25 am:
>> Axelrod has long been a fanboy of Rahm.
They are very, very old friends, and there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with that, but yes you do have to factor it into his comments.
I think the first time they worked together was the 1984 Paul Simon campaign (Axe worked ultimately as a campaign manager and I imagine Rahm was doing fundraising). That’s 40+ years on now.
- Ducky LaMoore - Wednesday, May 14, 25 @ 9:27 am:
I said yesterday that there is no benefit to running for reelection if the goal is the presidency. But I would gladly accept it if the alternative is Rahm being governor. The governor handled the question superbly.
- Tammy - Wednesday, May 14, 25 @ 9:32 am:
Deftly handled by the Gov. Called out the ruse without taking a shot at anyone.
However, I hope JB does take Axelrod’s advice, for two reasons: 1) a third term is more likely to create political problems than benefits for JB’s presidential campaign, and 2) I really want a chance to vote against Rahm.
- Excitable Boy - Wednesday, May 14, 25 @ 9:41 am:
- I mean, I think his opponent just cuts endless ads of Rahm talking about how much he loves Chicago -
Or doing shots and palling around with Rauner. I don’t how anyone can see a path for Rahm to win statewide or nation wide short of rigging a primary.
- Here and Here - Wednesday, May 14, 25 @ 9:45 am:
Axelrod’s advice was right on target. Look who did a Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Town Hall last night — Pete Buttigieg. Axelrod’s simple message: if you want to be President, run for President. The 2028 train is leaving the station.
- low level - Wednesday, May 14, 25 @ 9:47 am:
JB3T. JB 3 terms. Dont listen to the naysayers.
- Telly - Wednesday, May 14, 25 @ 10:05 am:
Both these things are true: Axelrod is pimping for Rahm. Axelrod is giving JB good advice about the risks of running for president in the middle of a third term.
- Stephanie Kollmann - Wednesday, May 14, 25 @ 10:23 am:
An experiment: How would the gov’s answer differ if he thought that Emanuel, 65, actually wants to run for POTUS
- Stephanie Kollmann - Wednesday, May 14, 25 @ 10:25 am:
I continue to believe that people who think Emanuel wants a different next job in politics underestimate his ambition or overestimate his patience
- Stephanie Kollmann - Wednesday, May 14, 25 @ 10:26 am:
This is a man whose brother wrote an op-ed titled “why I hope to die at 75″
- Arsenal - Wednesday, May 14, 25 @ 11:46 am:
I don’t know how you see this and think there’s any doubt about JB running for a third term.
- Taco Man - Wednesday, May 14, 25 @ 11:51 am:
To begin with, Rahm’s train is stuck in cement (not mud). Unfortunately, his political career has ended, whether for president or governor.
- Yellow Dog Democrat - Wednesday, May 14, 25 @ 12:23 pm:
=== Look who did a Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Town Hall last night ===
I like Pete. Alot.
He won the 2020 Iowa caucus though, and look how that worked out.
Biden showed you don’t have to win Iowa or New Hampshire any more, or really come in close.
What will be interesting is the next round of polls showing Dem preferences for 2028, and whether Harris is still the leader.
- Jeb - Wednesday, May 14, 25 @ 1:05 pm:
The bottom line for me is to stop being deceitful. If you are running for President, do not run for reelection for Governor. You can not do both well, period. Sometimes the Governor and his top staff get too cute for their own good. Actually, too cute for the good of the people of this state.
- JoeMaddon - Wednesday, May 14, 25 @ 1:19 pm:
**This is a man whose brother wrote an op-ed titled “why I hope to die at 75″**
Can we please not hold people accountable for what their siblings do?
- Rich Miller - Wednesday, May 14, 25 @ 1:21 pm:
===Can we please not hold people accountable for what their siblings do? ===
A thousand times this.
My four brothers are all over the board politically. They are their own men.
- Excitable Boy - Wednesday, May 14, 25 @ 1:49 pm:
- Can we please not hold people accountable for what their siblings do? -
Agreed. Rahm is repugnant enough on his own.
- Here Here - Wednesday, May 14, 25 @ 4:07 pm:
Boy, there’s bound to be a few haters on here. Rahm & Axelrod were instrumental in helping elect two Presidents from the Democratic Party. Some of you wanna be consultants need to win a White House race or two before casting so much shade.
- Excitable Boy - Wednesday, May 14, 25 @ 7:10 pm:
- Boy, there’s bound to be a few haters on here -
They vastly outnumber the annoying Rahm sycophants like you these days. On a blog full of Illinois political enthusiasts that should probably give you some pause about his ability to win an election as a candidate these days.