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| RAUNER: Trying to avoid Trump burn |
So
Rauner has always had to do a rhetorical dance around many issues, particularly
whenever the name of Donald J. Trump comes up.
BECAUSE
THE LAST thing the governor wants to have happen as he seeks re-election in
2018 is for all the people who despise the idea of “President Donald Trump” to
take out that hostility by voting against him.
But
there’s also the reality that outside of the Chicago area, the part of Illinois
where a Rauner re-election effort will focus much of its attention, Trump has
his fans.
As
in Illinois would have been amongst the Great Lakes states that swung over into
his favor – if only the strong Chicago-area electorate hadn’t have pushed
Illinois over into the Hillary Clinton column for the Electoral College.
If
Rauner goes too hard in speaking out against the incumbent president, he could
wind up finding himself alienating the people he’s going to need if he’s to
have any chance of getting re-elected.
SO
THAT IS why it was considered somewhat of a bold move on Wednesday at the
Illinois State Fair when Rauner used a political rally to rip into the
nit-witted way in which Trump has handled responding to the race-motivated
violence in Charlottesville, Va.
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| TRUMP: Taking down all in his path? |
Under
a headline of Governor lays into Trump,
the Chicago Tribune reported that Rauner said, “We must stand together against
hatred and racism and bigotry and violence and we must condemn those actions in
Charlottesville in the strongest terms.”
Much
stronger than the presidential rhetoric about how there’s blame on “both sides”
and how “not all of those people were neo-Nazis. Not all of those people were
white supremacists by any stretch.”
But
just when one thinks Rauner is taking a side and trying to distance himself
from the presidential nonsense being spewed to legitimize the people who are
the source of our society’s problems, it seems he’s trying not to go too far.
TAKE
THE INTERVIEW he gave Friday to WBEZ-FM, where he talked about a pending bill
that would limit across the state of Illinois the ability of law enforcement to
get itself involved in immigration law enforcement.
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| How much are J.B., Dems counting on Rauner to beat self |
Chicago
and Cook County already have such actions on their books – the measures that
have caused the Trump types to threaten the federal funding our city and county
receive. Rauner won’t say for sure whether he’ll sign it. “An announcement
about that in the next couple of days” is as far as he’ll commit.
Could
Rauner be contemplating a veto, or some sort of amendatory action, to tamper
with the bill that is meant to reinforce the faith people have in their police
to behave properly, and which even Rauner himself has called, “a reasonable
compromise.”
Something
to convince those more ideologically-inclined to keep their faith in him, and
not get upset that he bad-mouthed “The Donald” – kicking the president when he’s
furthest down (only 38 percent approval as of Friday, according to the Gallup Organization’s
daily tracking poll).
OF
COURSE, IF he goes too far, he’ll wind up antagonizing the urban electorate of
Illinois. What Rauner wants is apathy amongst Chicago voters. What he needs is
to not do anything that harms his own interests.
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| COULTER: Expressing ideologue truth? |
Because
the ideologues don’t have a natural affinity for him, the significance of that
recent outburst by that ninny of a pundit, Ann Coulter, who responded to a Fox
News interview the governor gave about education funding in Illinois by saying
(rather crudely) Rauner, “either is retarded or is playing retard.”
The
honest truth is that if a Democrat manages to win the 2018 gubernatorial
election, it’s going to be because Rauner managed to blow it – not because
people have any love for J.B. Pritzker or any other Dem hopeful.
Which
is what all the mechanizations these days of Rauner are all about – a balancing
act to prevent the Age of Trump from incinerating his political future.
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