Bruce Rauner not only must learn how to be a governor –
every new governor does – but how to be a politician. He made a good start in
the campaign. He promised things he cannot deliver and pandered to voters by
telling them what they want to hear like any hack politician of the kind that Illinoisans
purport to detest, and did it well enough that he got a little more than half the votes.
Mr. Rauner will have to learn the art of legislative
politics too, which demands very different things from a candidate than does
electoral politics. What’s more, he will have to teach many of his new
colleagues how to be politicians as well. Rich Miller, in his regular column in
Crain’s, summed up Rauner’s dilemma neatly. GOP legislators, who
have been shut out of power for so long that they’ve grown accustomed to
opposing every budget and bashing almost every major piece of legislation the
Democrats propose.” “Politics” for that lot has meant burnishing their image
with the folks back home. Four-fiths of the GOP members, noted Miller, “have no idea what it’s like to vote for
unpopular stuff to help their party’s governor cut a deal with the other side.”
In addition, the legislative tradition is that members of
the governor’s party sponsor all budget bills. which means that GOP members
will have to stop striking poses and actually vote yes on a state budget
sponsored and backed by their party, and accept the consequences.
Getting these members to go along with the gag
will be, as Miller put it, “a tricky problem” for Mr. Rauner. I expect that
dealing with his own party, in fact, will be the trickiest problem he will
face, especially when it comes to revenue issues. Democrats will happily go
along with the new guy. They know the state needs more money, and they’ll be
delighted to turn Rauner into the next Dick Ogilvie, a superb governor who left
Springfield after only one term because he dared push for new, needed revenue.
This article appears in Nov 13-19, 2014.
