Avoiding talk of 'Quincy' while in Quincy key to analyzing gov. debate

Thursday is the last of the three official debates the candidates for Illinois governor will hold prior to Election Day, and there’s really one simple way of determining who comes out ahead.

We'll see a Quincy-centric world Thursday

Just how much does discussion focus on the Veterans’ Home in Quincy – the facility where several fatalities occurred from elderly residents who contracted the Legionnaires Disease.

BECAUSE YOU JUST know that Democratic nominee J.B. Pritzker is going to want to turn the entire session into a rant against how those men who served their country wound up dying while in the care of Gov. Bruce Rauner.

That’s actually a gross oversimplification of what really happened, but then again most of what gets said during a political campaign is oversimplification and distortion with only the slightest tidbit of truth to it.

So if we wind up being given the impression that Rauner is personally responsible for dead military veterans, it will mean that Pritzker will have “won” the debate – he will have been capable of having his version of “the truth” predominate.

Whereas if we wind up being given the impression that this election cycle is about a man who had the toilets ripped out of a mansion in order to get a significant property tax break (because it no longer qualified as an inhabitable home), then we can chalk up Thursday night to Team Rauner.

YOU MAY BE wondering “What’s your point?”

RAUNER: Caused negligence that killed vets?

It’s that these circumstances shouldn’t be surprising. Political debates have the great misfortune of being so filled with nonsense that it’s a wonder anything useful comes out of them. There actually are times I wonder why political candidates bother to participate in them.

Personally, what I always try to look for when watching such an event is just how quick on one’s feet one is. How they handle the back-and-forth of answering back.

And also watching for that moment (which can crop up at virtually any point in time, usually most unexpected) when a candidate goes off-script and says something from the heart. Telling us what he really thinks about an issue.

PRITZKER: A toilet-less tax cheat?

OF COURSE, THOSE moments can be dreaded by a candidate because “honesty” can often be ugly – showing us just how insipid a political aspirant truly is and all-the-more reason why we shouldn’t bother voting for that person.

For what it’s worth, Thursday’s debate between Rauner and Pritzker is meant to be the “downstate” debate. Unlike the two previous events sponsored by the Chicago Urban League and the League of Women Voters that were held in Chicago, this one is being held outside the Chicago area.

It will have a panel of broadcaster-types from Quincy, Peoria and Rockford, along with a reporter-type from the Herald-Whig newspaper of Quincy. Which means it may well have questions that focus on the rest of the state – the part of Illinois where Rauner dreams he’s the favorite and that will lead him to a victory over Pritzker.

Now I don’t doubt the downstate Illinois types will vote against Pritzker because he’s “too Chicago-ish” for them. Although how they manage to tolerate Rauner is a mystery. It must be a really tight clothespin tacked onto their nose while they cast their ballots.

EITHER WAY, I’M sure many think this election stinks.

It is a victory for Pritzker’s part that his political operatives were able to get a Quincy-based debate as one of the events, and pressure Rauner into having to accept it. I have no doubt that the governor would rather be anywhere else in Illinois than in Quincy Thursday night.

Will gov candidates muck up the shores of the Mississippi River?

And as for Pritzker, it’s probably a matter of following the old political adage – “Avoid saying anything stupid!”

Because amidst all the cheap shots and distortions that both candidates will make about each other, we need to realize we’re getting our last glance at the two multi-millionaires who want to think that their personal wealth is significant enough to buy the political post of Illinois governor.

  -30-

EXTRA: Death toll up to 8, recovery efforts will be active for awhile

Between the time I wrote a weather-related commentary and the time you read this, the death toll in Illinois due to Sunday’s severe storms (winds of up to 190 miles per hour, in some places), the death toll climbed to 8 people.

Which is still small, considering how large a swath of Illinois got impacted.

LARGE ENOUGH THAT early Tuesday, Gov. Pat Quinn added added six more counties to the list of those that are now officially state disaster areas. Those include Will County that makes up the far south suburban portion of metro Chicago.

But it doesn’t change the fact that this was primarily a storm that devastated rural Illinois communities, and that we in Chicago ought to feel fortunate that we didn’t get hit harder.

In all as of Tuesday morning, there were 13 counties on the state disaster list – which is a designation that doesn’t mean much in itself. But in order to qualify as a federal disaster area (which is what provides all the outside aid to help rebuild), the state must first make a declaration.

“While the recovery will be long and hard, we will work in the coming days, weeks and months to assist these communities and help the people who live there rebuild their lives,” Quinn said, in a prepared statement.

IT WILL BE just a matter of days (possibly by week’s end when we stop getting bombarded every news cycle with the same images of devastation from places like Washington (which seems to be the favorite for TV news crews, possibly because Peoria isn’t that far away). But places like Gifford, Diamond and New Minden (also downstate Illinois communities) also got whacked pretty hard.

Not that anybody with a civic conscience ought to be headed there. Because the reality is that anybody who thinks they can help out with the relief effort would really be doing nothing more than getting in the way of the cleanup crews. People who think they can seriously help ought to contact the Red Cross, or Washington city government at (309) 563-4035 to let the locals know of their availability.

They should be aware of the reality that while the news coverage will soon move on, the need for relief will be ongoing for months as people try to rebuild the lives for themselves that they suddenly lost in a few seconds on Sunday.

  -30-