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* Still catching up here on stuff that happened during the break…
Bipartisan rejection of Pritzker's "fair tax" amendment, which he spent $58M promoting: The governor's campaign lost outright in 26 of the 74 Illinois House districts held by Democrats, and 37 of the 85 House districts that voted for Biden. https://t.co/yWwLUvVJX8
— Austin Berg (@A_R_BERG) December 29, 2020
Not good when the proposal needed to win either three-fifths or a majority of all those voting in the election.
posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, Jan 6, 21 @ 10:07 am
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Is Stacy Abrams looking for a new challenge?
Comment by Montrose Wednesday, Jan 6, 21 @ 10:20 am
How much did the anti-Fair tax people spend? I guess IPI deserves a victory lap for finally showing their donors *some* accomplishment.
But yeah: the pro-Fair Tax campaign was abyssmal. Wall to wall yet ineffective ads. No downstate specific message.
They can’t blame the antis for this loss- they knew the exact messaging they would use (”cant trust them politicians,” conflating fair tax with the current status quo, etc.) and they had no effective counter? Oh well, im sure the Pritzker consultants and ad execs are flittering on to their next failure.
Comment by Hullabaloo Wednesday, Jan 6, 21 @ 10:21 am
It’s almost as if someone who never ran a campaign in IL ran the fair tax campaign. It was painful to watch.
Comment by Toothpicks and Ice Cream Wednesday, Jan 6, 21 @ 10:21 am
=Is Stacy Abrams looking for a new challenge?=
Took the words out of my mouth.
Comment by TinyDancer(FKASue) Wednesday, Jan 6, 21 @ 10:24 am
I’ve seen this as two very separate things going forward after this breakdown.
One separate thing, the Fair Tax Flop is colossal to its scope and depth to losing so many advantages and never baking in before absentee / early voting began.
The other separate thing is… a super minority party can point to “this”, these breakouts, but in the end, if they are unwilling to decide to be part of a solution, then areas (non-Democratic districts) that are tax eaters and where cuts can be made, they should feel the hardest and deepest pain.
And I’m not ignoring the factual breakdown of that tweet, just as I’m not ignoring what Rauner showed by not having a budget for two years; areas where cuts can come that don’t interfere where mandates or legally required *can’t* cut.
I’m also not ignoring both sides of the same coin;
* Dems control “everything”, it’s theirs
* Dems don’t need to listen to the other party, won’t listen
Walking this around the barn as I am, the politics now is Durkin and McConchie limiting damage as best they can to tax eating districts in their caucuses (prisons, DNR, higher ed) and Pritzker owning his choice while limiting damage to core Dem constituencies/policies/programs.
Pointing out Dem districts voted no is also a crutch to Durkin and McConchie, but if both caucuses don’t want to find a common ground, or make it easy to be wholly ignored by “governor own”, the end game is the Fair Tax Flop brought on huge stress, like betting the rent money on the Bears last Sunday against the Packers, and now ya have till the end of the month to find enough revenue to pay the rent. Not a great place to be.
Colossal loss. Now it’s the picking up the pieces part.
Comment by Oswego Willy Wednesday, Jan 6, 21 @ 10:24 am
The Fair Tax failure may be severely mitigated by an influx of Congressional assistance. This will buy a lot of breathing room for the short term.
Long term, the structural challenge clearly remains.
Comment by don the legend Wednesday, Jan 6, 21 @ 10:33 am
There are some folks that cashed checks that should never work in politics again.
I don’t know what they did with that $58 million, but this Illinois voter didn’t get a single piece of mail from them.
Comment by Candy Dogood Wednesday, Jan 6, 21 @ 10:49 am
but this Illinois voter didn’t get a single piece of mail from them.
I must be their favorite human, too. I got the same mailer lots of times.
Saw the same commercial lots of times.
This would be an excellent book/article on “how not to get something passed”.
Comment by Fav Human Wednesday, Jan 6, 21 @ 10:59 am
Still waiting to see who lost their job over the poor messaging and losing campaign on the fair tax. Does that happen now that Manar is on board? Will the Deputy Governors now begin to be changed?
Comment by Lincoln Lad Wednesday, Jan 6, 21 @ 11:04 am
This is what you get when you ignore the collar counties. Then again, that is what we have come to expect from a Gov’s Office with a lot of Rahm hires, who had to find new jobs.
Comment by Disgusted Wednesday, Jan 6, 21 @ 11:06 am
the usual dem problem harmed the fair tax campaign — not enough regional messages, not enough war room rapid response regionally. you can’t run a statewide campaign out of downtown Chicago - you need regional leadership from Cairo to Chicago. sorry it failed - the state needs it and a lot of good people were for it.
Comment by west wing Wednesday, Jan 6, 21 @ 11:08 am
What’s also interesting is comparing to the 2018 Gov. race. Given this was JB’s signature issue it’s clear voters voted for “not Rauner” not for JB’s agenda. The fall off was 20% - 30%+ for the fair tax in most districts even in ones that JB won by 60%+.
36th district JB won by 24%, Biden by 18%, Fair Tax lost by 2%.
67th district JB won 28%, Biden 27%, Fair Tax lost 0.2%
98th district JB won 22%, Biden 23%, Fair Tax lost 5%
Comment by 1st Ward Wednesday, Jan 6, 21 @ 11:11 am
==No downstate specific message==
What about the “Agree On” spot with the two old white guys, one R and one D, espousing the virtues of a fair tax?
Comment by City Zen Wednesday, Jan 6, 21 @ 11:15 am
I don’t think the message was the problem. I think too many people just don’t trust the politicians to do what the say.
Comment by Bruce( no not him) Wednesday, Jan 6, 21 @ 11:45 am
==not enough regional messages, not enough war room rapid response regionally==
177 Community and Advocacy Organizations
126 Labor Organizations
17 Faith Organizations
Vote Yes for Fairness claimed over 300 endorsing organizations, including multi-billion dollar behemoth AARP. These groups are the very definition of grassroots campaigning. They know how to get the message out. They got it out. Not enough people bought it.
Comment by City Zen Wednesday, Jan 6, 21 @ 11:55 am
Maybe, just maybe, voters weren’t rejecting specifically the “FAIR” tax, they may have been rejecting ANY more taxes. Illinois has had a continual increase in taxes and fees for years now. Politicians have discovered automatic annual tax increases for gasoline and property taxes in Chicago. Enough is enough! Dem politicians can increase the current income tax by a flat amount, but they had better consider voter consequences before they do!
Comment by t Wednesday, Jan 6, 21 @ 12:14 pm
We probably will never know this, but I wonder what percentage of No voters would have voted “Yes” had Frerichs not raised the specter of taxing retirement.
I voted Yes, but I wonder if a significant number of No-to-Yes voters after Frerich’s faux pas were AFSCME and other union state employees. Some of whom were fearing that the Fair Tax would again raise the specter of taxing state employee pensions (under the specter of unconstitutional “pension reform”).
Comment by Essential State Employee Wednesday, Jan 6, 21 @ 12:36 pm
==Given this was JB’s signature issue it’s clear voters voted for “not Rauner” not for JB’s agenda. ==
This. So many paid political activists (and commenters on this site) apparently failed to understand that that might be a possibility. Taking JB’s win as a full throated advocacy of a fair tax product was a mistake and miscalculation by its proponents from the get go. People vote for politicians for many individual reasons–not necessarily because of a signature agenda item.
Comment by Responsa Wednesday, Jan 6, 21 @ 12:40 pm
==I voted Yes, but I wonder if a significant number of No-to-Yes voters after Frerich’s faux pas were AFSCME and other union state employees.==
I meant to say “Yes-to-No” voters after Frerich’s proposal.
Comment by Essential State Employee Wednesday, Jan 6, 21 @ 12:53 pm
==This. So many paid political activists (and commenters on this site) apparently failed to understand that that might be a possibility. Taking JB’s win as a full throated advocacy of a fair tax product was a mistake and miscalculation by its proponents from the get go. People vote for politicians for many individual reasons–not necessarily because of a signature agenda item.==
Spot on. I think this highlights the significant disconnect between politicians at the center of the budget issue and the voters who elect them. People could have just voted for JB because they wanted more moderation compromise coming from the Governor’s Office. It wasn’t necessarily a full-throated endorsement of revenue measures to fix State finances. JB voters that voted against the Fair Tax are rightfully suspicious of Springfield getting another injection of funds to fix problems. What’s weird is how JB and Fair Tax supporters have responded to the Fair Tax loss by blaming voters. The political class thinks that sending more money to Springfield is to fix the problem for good is logical. Voters aren’t that dumb.
Comment by California Guy Wednesday, Jan 6, 21 @ 1:19 pm
==Given this was JB’s signature issue it’s clear voters voted for “not Rauner” not for JB’s agenda. ==
That was exactly the same thing why 2/5 of Union voters voted for Rauner four years earlier–because “he’s not Quinn” and the ongoing bitterness over the AFSCME cancelled pay raise/contract fights of 2011-13.
Comment by Essential State Employee Wednesday, Jan 6, 21 @ 6:43 pm