EXTRA: Rauner, forever bitter?

“I am very scared for the people of Illinois. I believe that the folks who put Illinois into a financial quagmire are now back in complete control of the government. The policies that have created the financial mess for the state of Illinois are now the policies that will be dominating completely without any resistance whatsoever.”
--Bruce Rauner, Illinois governor, 2015-19

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RAUNER: Still peeved about electoral loss

Bruce Rauner let it be known this week that he’s not about to take the high road politically with regards to his Election Day loss earlier this month.

While Rauner wasn’t ready (still) to say much of anything about how President Donald Trump and his presence impacted the soon-to-be-former governor politically, he’s going to forever go about trashing the Democrats whom he seems to want to believe have a whole lot of nerve for challenging him in the first place.

PERSONALLY, I’M INCLINED to view the issue as one where a whole lot of Illinois people voted the way they did to replace Rauner because they saw all his politically partisan actions as the reason why our state’s financial problems got exacerbated into a calamity of historic proportions. They were “very scared” of “four more years” of partisan-motivated nothingness within our government.

Not that the actions of Rauner should have been shocking. This was a man who campaigned back in 2014 on the idea that he wanted to undermine the influence of organized labor in our government, and that IT was to blame for not kowtowing to the self interests of business and corporate America.

Of course, considering the fact that we in Illinois have a state Legislature with leadership who are protective of working people and their interests, the activity of the past few years shouldn’t have been at all surprising.

The only real shock, if you think about it, is that Rauner (who had never before held political office) ever got elected in the first place. Although that’s most likely due to apathy felt about then-Gov. Pat Quinn, and a not-so-realistic thought that ANYBODY who replaced him would be better.

NOW, WE KNOW that we were deluded in our political apathy, and took the first chance we could get to remove Rauner – regardless of what we truly think of Gov.-elect J.B. Pritzker.

I don’t doubt that Republican partisans are peeved about the Election Day results in Illinois, although I suspect what really bothers them is the fact that back in 1994 when the GOP managed to take control of all the state constitutional offices and General Assembly, the Republican period of domination only lasted two years.

ROGERS: Not organized, just Democrats

By comparison, this modern-day Democrat domination of Illinois government lasted 12 years, became one of Democrat control for four years, and now has been restored to Democrat domination. It sounds more like political jealousy to me!

And to those people I know who have fantasies of Ronald Reagan-like resuscitation in Illinois, I say to keep in mind the words of Will Rogers, who once said, “the difference between a Republican and a Democrat is the Democrat is a cannibal they have to live off each other. While the Republicans, why they live off the Democrats." Perhaps a majority of us were tired of Rauner trying to enrich himself and his business colleagues at the expense of the rest of us.

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