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Last night’s oddest moment

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Illinois

* From the Tribune’s coverage of last night’s GOTV rally for Gov. Quinn…

President Barack Obama on Sunday night helped launch an all-out effort by Democrats to get voters to the polls for Gov. Pat Quinn, telling thousands gathered at a South Side rally to cast their ballots when early voting starts Monday. […]

Quinn, who has tried to make Rauner’s wealth a central issue of the campaign, wants to keep the state income tax rate at 5 percent instead of letting it fall back to 3.75 percent as scheduled in January. “As long as I’m governor, we’re not going to give tax breaks to the wealthy at the expense of cutting our schools,” Quinn told the audience.

Obama, however, said Quinn was running to “provide the largest tax break in history of working families in Illinois.” A Quinn aide said the president was referring to Quinn’s call last spring for a property tax cut. That plan went nowhere in the General Assembly.

So, either the prez didn’t want to talk about the income tax issue, or he believes Quinn should be running on property tax relief instead. Either way, that was pretty darned weird.

posted by Rich Miller
Monday, Oct 20, 14 @ 1:00 pm

Comments

Illinois has a flat income tax . Pat Quinn raised the income taxes on ALL taxpayers not just the rich. Pat Quinn really doesn’t care that working people had their paycheck diminished.

Comment by Steve Monday, Oct 20, 14 @ 1:05 pm
@Steve:

Still playing the victim I see.

Comment by Demoralized Monday, Oct 20, 14 @ 1:13 pm
Teleprompters say the weirdest things.

Comment by John A Logan Monday, Oct 20, 14 @ 1:13 pm
I suspect he didn’t want to be on tape supporting a tax increase. Would not do any dem outside of Illinois any favors…

Comment by OneMan Monday, Oct 20, 14 @ 1:15 pm
At least the place was half empty…That helps…

Comment by Walter Mitty Monday, Oct 20, 14 @ 1:29 pm
Having the rally in that building at that school speaks loudly about the government we have voted for and deserved here over the past few decades. Complete waste of money at a school with serious fundamental problems.

Comment by Ron Burgundy Monday, Oct 20, 14 @ 1:35 pm
Nice try Walter Mitty. The arena was filled to its 6,000 seat capacity. 6,200 in attendance.

Comment by too obvious Monday, Oct 20, 14 @ 1:37 pm
I was there last night, and that was not the weirdest moment.

For me, the weirdest moment came when the President told the crowd that “You’ve got to go get Cousin Pookie, who just sits on the couch watching TV and hasn’t voted in five years, out to vote!”

Never in my life did I believe the President of the United States would say, “Cousin Pookie.”

It was golden.

Comment by PrairieFire Monday, Oct 20, 14 @ 1:40 pm
I guess Quinn forgot about that CME tax break in the darkest depths of the recession.

Comment by Wordslinger Monday, Oct 20, 14 @ 1:58 pm
too obvious,

The shots I saw on the news did show empty seats, suspect they were empty for security reasons (they were above and behind) but they did look empty

http://www.trbimg.com/img-544471ef/turbine/chi-obama-to-headline-early-voting-rally-for-quinn-20141019

Comment by OneMan Monday, Oct 20, 14 @ 1:58 pm
@OneMan - Those seats were empty. They are the upper balcony, behind the podium.
Configured for this event, the capacity was probably around 6,000-6,200.

If I had to guess, I would say there were around 5,800 people. But that is a wild guess.

Comment by PrairieFire Monday, Oct 20, 14 @ 2:16 pm
Would have put a curtain up or something, looked kind of obvious and since most of your shots would be of the dais it would make sense for all of those seats to be filled or out of sight completely.

Comment by OneMan Monday, Oct 20, 14 @ 2:19 pm
Maybe, but that is a close-up with very soft focus on the far background. Not worth it.

Comment by PrairieFire Monday, Oct 20, 14 @ 2:22 pm
At what point did the word “victim” become the standard insult to be used against anyone who expresses an opinion against the current government?

Person A: I think Governor Quinn is doing a bad job and it’s hurting my family.
Person B: Oh, stop being a victim.

Seems dismissive.

Comment by Befuddled Monday, Oct 20, 14 @ 2:24 pm
=== - Befuddled - Monday, Oct 20, 14 @ 2:24 pm:

At what point did the word “victim” become the standard insult to be used against anyone who expresses an opinion against the current government? ===

Are you new here? That’s his shtick, in context or out of context. Sometimes used even while playing the victim.

Comment by Birdseed Monday, Oct 20, 14 @ 2:34 pm
Too Obvious… I accept your apology… It really wasn’t a shot..just an observation. Like GW in a midterm…You are hard pressed to find Obama stumping for anyone else.. Just the fact’s… Say it’s about security.. How do explain 48 or 49 other states?

Comment by Walter Mitty Monday, Oct 20, 14 @ 2:37 pm
According to the Sun-Times, the crowd “estimated at 6,200 people” filled the “6,000-seat Chicago State University Jones Convocation Center.”

The seats above and behind the President were empty for security reasons. That’s expected. But the rest of the seats were filled, plus the floor seating.

So the numerous news reports from the event describing the over-flow capacity are correct.

Comment by too obvious Monday, Oct 20, 14 @ 2:38 pm
==That’s his shtick==

Only towards our resident victim. But I digress . . .

@Walter:

To be fair everywhere else isn’t in Chicago. I think it’s safe for the President to campaign there for somebody.

Comment by Demoralized Monday, Oct 20, 14 @ 2:44 pm
It was really important to have a one-two coordinated message punch between the incumbent governor and his party’s president on their home turf.

This wasn’t well done, as it should have been.

Cousin Pookie was obviously not there, btw.

Comment by VanillaMan Monday, Oct 20, 14 @ 3:08 pm
It sure wasn’t Berlin now, was it?

Comment by A guy... Monday, Oct 20, 14 @ 3:55 pm
At least he didn’t call him by the wrong last name.

Comment by woodchuck Monday, Oct 20, 14 @ 4:24 pm
I was there, it was about 95% full including a lot of people in the standing room areas. The balcony seats were the last to fill because security was really, really tight and a lot of people just got there right as Obama spoke.

Comment by horse w/ no name Monday, Oct 20, 14 @ 4:40 pm
There apparently isn’t a national GOP figure who would do Rauner any good by campaigning for hm.

Give that a think.

Comment by Wordslinger Monday, Oct 20, 14 @ 5:58 pm