Republican
gubernatorial hopeful Bruce Rauner made a point earlier this year of touting
the number of African-American ministers willing to publicly endorse him.
It’s
not that large a number in terms of the totality of clergy ministering to black
neighborhoods on the South and West sides. But it could impact the number of
votes that turn out for Gov. Pat Quinn just enough that the hard-core GOPers of
Illinois could be enough supporters to actually win a statewide election.
RAUNER
IS CONTINUING to emphasize that theme of reaching out to black voters. On
Friday, his campaign operation opened up a new office on 79th Street
in the Grand Crossing neighborhood.
It
will be out of that South Side office that his operations to try to appeal to
black voters (or at least discourage them from getting all worked up over Quinn
come Nov. 4) will take place.
Which
is unique because most Republican campaigns for higher office generally tend to
ignore African-American oriented communities – they’d prefer to pretend that
they don’t exist. Which is the real reason black voters can go 90 percent in
favor of Democratic Party candidates for public office.
Rauner
even went so far as to show up for the Saturday take on the Bud Billiken Day
parade – the Chicago Defender-sponsored parade that is meant to mark the end of
summer and get children excited about the start of a new school year.
POLITICIANS
OFTEN SHOW up at the parade through the Bronzeville neighborhood, but they
usually are of the Democratic persuasion. Most Republicans act as though they
have never heard of the parade. Then again, these are the same types of people
who in Naperville have a Labor Day weekend parade that they prefer to call an “end
of summer” parade.
Celebrate
labor and workers? Harumph! You might as well start waving about the hammer and
sickle to those people.
Rauner’s
presence actually created a side angle to the campaign story. For it seems on
Saturday there was a shooting incident near the parade route (two men were
wounded – one in the derriere) that caused parade-watchers to scatter for
safety not far from where the candidate from suburban Winnetka was greeting
voters.
For
the record, Rauner aides say they don’t think the candidate was aware of what
was going on, and that they didn’t hear gunshots.
BUT
I’M SURE on a certain level, Rauner is going to try to claim some credit for
showing up in “da hood” – although if this evolves into a story of him having
his life and limbs on the line while campaigning for governor, THAT is
something we ought to call him out on!
Some
of you may be saying I’m exaggerating what could happen. Maybe so, but let’s
also be honest and admit that “truthfulness” is not something that campaigns of
any candidacy or political persuasion let get in the way of a storyline –
particularly if it makes the opposition look bad.
So
what should we think of Rauner’s recent efforts to get black voters to not
think of him as the enemy? I noticed the statement he put out when he opened
that new campaign field office included a raft of statistics (17 percent
African-American unemployment rate, worse than for Latinos, Asians or white
people) that were due to “Pat Quinn’s failed leadership.”
Yet
no mention of what Rauner himself might do to try to bolster employment among
African-American people; which some might say is enhanced by the desires of so
many GOPers to ignore outright the concerns of that community.
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