Bruce Rauner has closer ties to top Democrats in this state and nation than many Democrats do, is pro-choice and reluctant to say where he stands on gay marriage, so you wouldn’t think he’d have much chance at winning a Republican primary for governor. But the retired multi-millionaire is running a pretty smart campaign and […]
Rich Miller
Posted inOpinion
Quinn vows to veto ADM, cites pension reform ‘issue of a lifetime’
Gov. Pat Quinn refused to say for several days whether he’d support a $1.2 million a year tax break for Archer Daniels Midland to move 100 jobs out of Decatur and open up a world headquarters and new tech center in Chicago. But last week he made it clear that without pension reform, the ADM […]
Posted inOpinion
Why Quinn is appealing
A bipartisan chorus seemed to rise as one last week to urge Gov. Pat Quinn not to appeal a ruling by a Cook County judge. The judge ruled that the governor had violated the state Constitution when he vetoed lawmaker salaries last summer. Quinn said he vetoed the appropriations because he was tired of waiting […]
Posted inOpinion
The right stuff
For a moment, let’s flash back to a poll I commissioned last month. The Aug. 13 Capitol Fax/We Ask America poll surveyed 1,102 likely Republican primary voters. The poll found that 74 percent of Republicans wanted GOP gubernatorial candidates to choose a running mate who was “more conservative” than the candidates themselves. Another 18 percent […]
Posted inOpinion
Tweaking pension reform
Several members of the Illinois General Assembly’s special pension reform committee told me last week that they believed a final proposal would emerge within the next week to 10 days. The conference committee has been working on a solution to the state’s pension problems since June, after urgings by Gov. Pat Quinn to find a […]
Posted inOpinion
Rauner’s race for governor
Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner has focused like a laser on his absolute disgust with public employee unions like AFSCME, the Illinois Education Association and the Illinois Federation of Teachers. The wealthy former business executive claims the unions are the root of most of Illinois’ problems and has decried the “corrupting” influence of their campaign […]
Posted inOpinion
Democratic ties plunge GOP governor contenders in polls
I had heard that Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner’s longtime personal and business connections to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel were “killer” issues among GOP primary voters, so I decided to commission a poll. The question I settled on is pretty mild in comparison to what could be used in a TV ad, so the response […]
Posted inOpinion
Did Lisa lie?
“Ask her,” Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan told a Sun-Times reporter last week. The journalist wanted to know why Madigan’s daughter Lisa would consider running for governor knowing that the father had no plans to step down as Speaker. So I tried to ask her. But I didn’t get very far. Attorney General Lisa Madigan, […]
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The check’s in the mail, veto out of mind – not!
House Speaker Michael Madigan has always strongly guarded the powers of the General Assembly as a coequal branch of government, so it was a little surprising when he appeared to support Gov. Pat Quinn’s line-item veto of legislative salaries back in mid July. The governor vetoed the salaries in retaliation for the GA’s failure to […]
Posted inOpinion
The good, the bad and the potential ugly
Gov. Pat Quinn is leading his sole Democratic primary rival, and challenger Bill Daley will have some serious problems with his blue chip résumé, according to a new Capitol Fax/We Ask America poll. The poll of 1,394 likely Democratic primary voters found Quinn leading Daley by five points, 38-33. That’s exactly where the two stood […]
Posted inOpinion
Rauner moves some numbers in gov bid
Back in early February, not a single person picked Bruce Rauner’s name in a Paul Simon Public Policy Institute poll of likely Republican primary voters. Other polls taken since then have shown the retired financier Rauner in the low single digits in his bid for governor. But Rauner has been dumping money into downstate TV, […]
Posted inOpinion
Daley takes his gloves off
I think a lot of people believed that if Bill Daley ran for governor his campaign would be as bland and vanilla as his public persona has been over the decades. Instead, he’s turned into the fieriest candidate in the race so far. Daley is even “out-angering” wealthy Republican financier Bruce Rauner, who has tried […]
