Courtney: I have been living with endometriosis for 20 years.
Linda: I was healthy, except for the MS. Scared to death with the MS.
Courtney: I was having to make choices between groceries or the medication I needed. When people like Erika Harold threaten Obamacare, I can’t believe how little she values people like me with preexisting conditions.
Linda: The threat of Obamacare being taken away is one of those sort of bad dreams. So when I hear that politicians like Erika Harold wanting to repeal Obamacare, I get angry, and honestly get scared.
Courtney: I can’t vote for Erika Harold.
Linda: Absolutely not.
* The Champaign News-Gazette editorial board, which endorsed area resident Erika Harold, is spitting mad…
If politics wasn’t such a sleazy business, this advertisement would set a new low for being misleading.
Harold, like Raoul, is running for attorney general of Illinois, not for federal office.
Obamacare — aka the Affordable Care Act — is federal legislation passed during former President Barack Obama’s first two years in office.
Court challenges have been filed against Obamacare and been rejected. There is nothing that Harold could do about repealing Obamacare, even if she wanted to do so.
This is classic scaremongering engaged in by a loser candidate who fears he’ll lose an election if he can’t drive his opponent’s negatives sky high.
* I asked the Raoul campaign for a response…
That’s false. Donald Trump and Republican state attorneys general are in Texas district court trying, yet again, to destroy the ACA and take healthcare away from people with preexisting conditions. Democratic AGs, including Lisa Madigan, have intervened to vigorously defend it. In 2014, Republican Erika Harold said she wanted to “repeal it all,” regarding the ACA. Not only could she do something to destroy Obamacare — we have every reason to believe she would.
The campaign is right about the court case and the News-Gazette is wrong.
* From the Champaign News-Gazette in 2014, when Harold was running for Congress…
Harold said she wanted to “repeal it all and start all over again with consumer-driven” reforms.
“Specifically on the issue of the Affordable Care Act, I don’t think it’s a bill that can be reformed. When we look at the consequence throughout the district, with people losing plans they liked, having to pay increased premiums and I think we’re going to see the full effect of it when the employer mandate goes in effect … I think it’s fundamentally flawed.”
Kwame Raoul is lying about Erika’s record because he can’t run on his own fourteen-year record of failure in Springfield. The truth is Erika supports the Illinois law barring insurance companies from denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing conditions, and Erika would not have joined the lawsuit seeking to have the Affordable Care Act declared unconstitutional.
I’m Erika Harold. If JB Pritzker is elected governor, he and Mike Madigan will have total control over state government. That much power in the hands of any one political party isn’t good for Illiniois. I’ll be a check on the Pritzker-Madigan agenda and work for you, not them.
Can Harold win? The “wave” environment would suggest not, but if voters are looking for a check on JB Pritzker and Speaker Madigan and they can’t bring themselves to vote for Gov. Rauner, she might be a realistic option. At least, that’s what the Republicans are hoping for. It’s probably too bad she can’t just come right out and say that in an ad, but much of her money is coming from Rauner, so it’s unlikely that she can or will.
The attorney general of Illinois should be independent, unafraid of special interests, political parties or politicians.
I’m Erika Harold and I’m accountable to you, not the president, not the governor.
And unlike Kwame Raoul, I’ll never take orders from Mike Madigan.
That’s a strong ad.
…Adding… From Aviva Bowen at the Raoul campaign…
It’s a little late for Republican Erika Harold to convince voters she would be independent of Bruce Rauner, who said he’d ‘personally recruited’ her. As for the president, Donald Trump and Republican AGs are in court working hard to take healthcare away from Illinoisans with pre-existing conditions, and Erika has been typically silent. That’s not independence or courage, but it’s consistent with her position to eliminate the ACA and hurt our families.
With two weeks remaining until Election Day, the Rauner Campaign is launching a new TV ad titled “Unholy Union.”
The ad highlights the devastating results of giving JB Pritzker and Mike Madigan total control of Illinois. Together, they will bankrupt Illinois with billions in new proposed spending and a massive tax hike.
Pritzker and Madigan – key players in the Chicago political machine – have repeatedly engaged in corrupt behavior to benefit themselves. Madigan has made millions off of high property taxes in his role as a property tax appeals lawyer, helping cronies like Pritzker get reductions on their property taxes. And Pritzker has engaged in a “scheme to defraud” taxpayers by ripping toilets out of his mansion, dodging $330,000 in property taxes.
Since allegations of sexual harassment and retaliation in Madigan’s organizations surfaced, Pritzker has continued to funnel millions into his coffers. When Pritzker’s staffers sued the campaign over harassment and discrimination, Madigan has been notably silent.
It’s clear that Illinois can’t afford the high taxes and corruption of the unholy union between Pritzker and Madigan.
Officiant: Repeat after me. I, Mike Madigan, take you, JB Pritzker, as my unlawful partner in destruction, to raise property taxes, corrupt government, and bankrupt Illinois’ future.
Madigan: Done, deal.
Officiant: And I, JB Pritzker, take you, Mike Madigan, to honor and obey til death do us part.
Pritzker: Always have, always will.
Officiant: By the power vested in me, I now pronounce Illinois [F-bomb partially bleeped].
Voiceover: Mike Madigan and JB Pritzker, an unholy union Illinois can’t afford.
Perhaps as a symbol of how far Illinois and the nation have moved on the issue of same-sex marriage, the fact that the ad depicts a “wedding” of two men is no longer its most provocative part.
In the 2002 Republican primary for governor, the late conservative activist Jack Roeser sent out mailers that thanked Jim Ryan for supporting “special rights for homosexuals” and “opening the door to gay marriages.” The mailing featured two bridegroom figurines atop a wedding cake. Roeser backed then-state Sen. Patrick O’Malley over Ryan, who was then the state’s attorney general.
Still, the ad could prove to be a reminder to social conservatives unhappy with Rauner’s actions as governor that included his signing a law expanding rights for transgender people.
* The Pritzker campaign’s response from Galia Slayen had sort of a marriage theme to it…
It is only fitting that Bruce Rauner would choose to end his campaign by blaming others for his own failures. After four years of seeing their governor more interested in affairs with special interests, badmouthing his own state and refusing to compromise, the people of Illinois are looking forward to their divorce from Bruce Rauner being finalized on November 6th.
*** UPDATE 1 *** With a hat tip to a commenter…
Rauner just vetoed a law to protect LGBTQ Illinoisans from workplace discrimination. Now he is mocking same-sex marriage as an "unholy union". Rauner's blatant homophobia has no place in Illinois. #twill#ilgov@WindyCityTimes#LGBTQhttps://t.co/1UbbhplOe3
*** UPDATE 2 *** From Brian C. Johnson, CEO of Equality Illinois…
We are deeply disappointed by Gov. Rauner’s new campaign ad that mocks marriage equality by tying two of his opponents together in a parody wedding.
We remind the governor that the official platform of the party he leads opposes marriage equality. A recent national poll found that a plurality of Republicans still oppose marriage equality. There is still much work to be done to move the hearts and minds of many Republican voters to value the dignity of same sex weddings. As someone who has officiated same sex weddings, Gov Rauner could serve as a model of inclusivity and use his campaign to vigorously promote full acceptance of LGBTQ Illinoisans. Instead, he chooses to raise the specter of gay marriage to turnout the most extreme elements of his base. We recognize a dog whistle when we hear one.
The governor should be ashamed of using the LGBTQ community for comedic value to make a political hit. Our weddings are not a joke. Gov. Rauner does not represent Illinois’ values with this ad.
*** UPDATE 3 *** The governor was on the Big John and Ramblin’ Ray show today and couldn’t say if this was his ad…
HOST 1: “I love the new ad. And we’ll play it after you leave because we don’t have time right now.”
HOST 2: “The ‘Unholy Alliance.’”
RAUNER: “Oh my goodness, we’re so abused if those two guys go in there.”
HOST 1: “Is that one of yours or is that an outside group?”
The Rauner campaign just confirmed that the "Unholy Union" ad launched today was commissioned by their campaign and @BruceRauner approved it before it was launched. #twill
“Bruce Rauner’s new ad is the last gasp of a failed leader stumbling out of office, willing to co-opt the homophobia of schoolyard bullies to try and divide us one last time. It’s not just offensive, it’s pathetic. Four years ago, Rauner invited voters to throw him out of office if he failed to get results. Without any accomplishments to speak of, Rauner’s re-election campaign has been reduced to cheap jokes, lame dog-whistles to conservatives who never forgave him, and an awkward public courtship of Donald Trump. As Rauner embarrasses himself in these final two weeks, Republicans voters have to ask themselves – are they proud of the campaign Bruce Rauner is running?”
“I thought this ad was so remarkable that I shared I with a couple of listservs – political scientists around the country,” said Chris Mooney, who is a professor at the University of Illinois Chicago and is president of the state politics section of the American Political Science Association. “I’ve received dozens of responses (from) people who can’t believe it. All over the country, they say they’ve never seen anything like it. … It’s an exteme version of a negative ad.”
Mooney said at first blush, he can’t see how the ad will help Rauner. He received lots of snarky comments from colleagues, he said, including one saying the ad belongs in a campaign magazine’s hall of shame. […]
“Everyhing in an ad is a choice,” Mooney added, including having a white man play the clergyman, having the marriage and the music.
“I do know they chose to do those things and the fact that marriage equality is still a hot issue, and the fact that the governor continues to really try to shore up his right after sort of devastation in the primary, all that suggests that maybe that’s what’s going on here,” Mooney said.
