Kane County Democrat so my ballot was relatively short. Biss for gov, Raoul for AG.
OK, we’re almost done here, but even fucking Youtube. I want to smash my goddamn iPhone or iPad against the wall whenever I see a goddamned JP Pritzker commercial. I mean, I’m gonna end up voting for him in November, but Jesus fucking Christ I’m sick of seeing his ugly mug.
Hey, that’s what I did! (Will county)
I agree and I’m a Pritzker supporter! I’ve had awful insomnia and have been watching a lot of YouTube in bed. Those relentless commercials are driving me crazy. I’m hoping he cuts them way back after the primary. There’s gonna be some hurt millennial Biss supporters tonight, but we need their votes in November.
Will County: Pritzker for Gov, Fairley for AG. In my district, only one candidate for judge in a contested race had any bar association endorsements so he got my vote. I actually spent a little time looking up the couple Precinct Committeewoman and other oddball races and making a semi-informed decision.
Whenever I see JB’s fat face pop up on my TV screen, I yell out “Norm!!!”
It makes me feel a little better.
I was working at home today, so I went to my polling place (at a local school) at around 3pm. I think there were three other voters, total. in the time I was there (and it covers several precincts across two suburbs).
I only saw one or two other voters after work although I was voter #204 in my precinct, not counting any early/absentee votes.
Man, the safe money is on Rauner to win but Ives is really cutting into his lead. He’s only 3.5% ahead with a lot of downstate votes left (67% reporting). For an incumbent, that’s pretty pathetic and doesn’t bode well for him in the general.
Pritzker easily walked away on the Democratic side with Biss & Kennedy splitting the “Not Pritzker” vote in half.
I’m impressed that Biss beat Kennedy (of course they both still lost to NORM!!!). All that money and name recognition, and Kennedy still lost to a no-name frat boy.
Kennedy didn’t really have much of campaign except that Rahm is a racist, while Biss was able to unite the Bernie Bros.
He won’t be getting this millennial’s vote.
Mike Madigan has puppet-like control of the Illinois legislative branch.
If JB becomes governor, he will work hand-in-hand with Mike Madigan. This means there will be no executive “check” on that power (barring the judicial branch, but the judicial check is a very slow and difficult process).
Why is this bad? It’s not inherently bad. If Mike Madigan was a “benevolent dictator”, he could do a lot of wonderful things for the people of Illinois by directing the money, resources, and people effectively.
…unfortunately, that’s not the case. His lifelong reign has been rife with corruption (he has made millions through his law firm by reducing property taxes for big businesses all while having a huge influence on property tax rates, essentially driving up property taxes for “the little man”), patronage (taking money to use his influence to get people’s children into UIUC; Metra hiring scandal that caused 5 of the board members to resign when it came out that Madigan got them to hire specific candidates), and nepotism (pulling strings to get his daughter elected as Attorney General… the very position that would investigate corruption).
He is one of the instrumental figures in Illinois’ current fiscal disaster – constantly increasing expenses while never shoring up revenue (especially in pensions, which he sponsored or voted for increases every single time in his 30+ years): https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-illinois-madigan/
Links:
Madigan’s law firm earning millions from property taxes: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-illinois-madigan-lawyer/illinois-house-speaker-makes-his-money-lowering-property-taxes-idUSKBN15N1HG
Patronage: Mike Madigan - Wikipedia Mike Madigan - Wikipedia
Pritzker is his hand-picked candidate and a useful tool for Madigan to cement his power in his twilight years. We’ve never had a Democratic governor who did not have an antagonistic relationship eith Madigan, so this would be unprecedented. Might as well start planning to move out of the state now while your property still has some value left.
I thought this sounded familiar…
https://www.reddit.com/r/chicago/comments/8634ro/why_do_i_need_to_vote_for_rauner_to_keep_madigan/dw20jon/
So, you’re voting for Rauner?
No question that trying to paint a billionaire who is not beholden to Madigan in anyway as “Madigan’s hand-picked puppet” (I think they should go for some alliteration - the Madigan machine muppet … or marionette … or puppet Pritzker) is the chosen sales pitch. Rauner is wanting to still go with himself change agent. He wants to run against Madigan not Pritzker.
Of course right now he is seen by most as that which needs changing having been so so awful. The pitch won’t get traction this time. This election will be more about how bad Rauner has been more than how great Pritzker will be and certainly not about Madigan. The Trumpian side of the GOP will sit this one out while Democratic voters are going to be united and voting. Pritzker is not as easily tied to Madigan as Quinn was, is not weak as Quinn was, and cannot be way outspent like Quinn was.
Brace yourselves for more ads than ever before though!
“Pritzker might work with Madigan so vote for the guy who drove the state into the ground by refusing to work with Madigan!”
The last several years have been a fiasco because Rauner steadfastly refused to work with the Democrats and then whined and cried about it as though he was suddenly surprised to learn that the Democrats controlled the state legislature. He knew what the job was when he took it and he completely failed to rise to the task and instead settled into finger-pointing and dereliction of his duties. Now I’m supposed to be worried that the next governor might actually do his job and work with the state assembly to make things happen?
I can understand how Rauner got elected the first time around by rpomising to stand up to Mike Madigan. However, he certainly hasn’t demonstrated any ability to do so in a way that makes things better rather than worse.
I completely agreed with DSeid, Jophiel, and Thudlow Boink on Rauner.
He came in saying, “the system in Illinois is broken*, we need to do something different to fix it, and I’m the something different.” And, then, proceeded to do absolutely nothing other than get into a four-year staring match with Madigan and the legislature. Plus, as Ives’s challenge to him in the primary demonstrated, he’s done things which have angered the far right wing of the GOP, which may have weakened his questionable political capital even further.
He’s given us absolutely no reason to believe that re-electing him will result in anything different than what we’ve seen in his first term, which has been the financial condition of the state continuing to deteriorate – something which, as noted earlier, has been the product of 30 years of neglect and kicking the can down the road on pension obligations, and which both the Democratic-controlled legislature, and the primarily Republican-controlled governorship over that time, own.
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- He’s not wrong.
I’ll preemptively point out that, despite my “drove the state into the ground” remark, I do agree that the problems are older and more systemic than simply one failed governor.
However, when we have a governor who petulantly refuses to sign off on a budget hours before the state goes into junk bond status and the assembly is forced to override his veto (requiring a bipartisan effort) at the 11th hour, he has proven himself completely unworthy of the position.
Agreed. Rauner is a disaster. Holding your breath until you turn blue is not how a responsible governor deals with the fact that the legislature is controlled by the other party.
But voting for Pritzker is going to strain my Democratic unity principle to the breaking point. I can’t believe that after four years of Rauner and two of Trump, that about 75% of Illinois Democrats thought “Hey, let’s nominate an completely inexperienced billionaire! What could go wrong?!” (lumping together Pritzker and Kennedy in that description). I think he’s going to be a crap governor and will open the door to a possible Republican win in 2022. But he almost certainly will win…there aren’t enough Republicans left in Illinois to win when they’re as deeply divided as they clearly are (I liked how the guy introducing Ives’ concession speech referred to his party’s candidate as “despicable”. Keep it up!).