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.

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Does downstate Illinois really love Quinn now? Or just afraid of unknown?

The Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University came out with its own poll recently for the upcoming primary elections, and there’s little surprising about its conclusion that Gov. Bruce Rauner and Democratic challenger J.B. Pritzker are the favorites for victory come March 20.

Has downstate forgiven Pat Quinn?

But I did find one aspect amusing – the portion that relates to the Illinois attorney general’s office.

ON THE SURFACE, it would indicate that Kwame Raoul, a state senator from the Hyde Park neighborhood, and Erika Harold, of Champaign, would be the favorites – although not by much. In a sense, a University of Chicago vs. University of Illinois election.

On the Republican side, it seems that nearly two-thirds of would-be GOP voters don’t have a clue who either Harold or challenger Gary Grasso are.

For the Democrats, there are eight candidates, but only two of them have any sizable following. As in Raoul and none other than Pat Quinn, our state’s former governor, who’s hoping to use the attorney general post as a way of achieving a political comeback.

According to the poll, Raoul has 22 percent support, compared to 18 percent for Quinn – with none of the others above 10 percent, and some 39 percent undecided.

BUT WHAT INTRIGUES me is the part that tried showing the regional breakdowns – where Raoul has 25 percent support in Chicago and 24 percent support in the suburbs. But Quinn is the leader in downstate Illinois.

Will it wind up being a Raoul vs. ...

The Mighty Quinn has some 25 percent support of downstate voters who will cast ballots in the Democratic primary, compared to 10 percent for Raoul.

“So what!,” you may ask. It might seem obvious that a lowly state legislator with little-to-no name recognition outside of his specific Senate district on the South Side would lag behind a guy who has been a part of the political scene for nearly as long as Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, himself.

Which is true, since Quinn served on the staff of then-Gov. Dan Walker back in the early 1970s, before going on to other roles – including the “cut back” action that reduced the Illinois House by one-third in the early 1980s.

... Harold brawl following the March 20 primary?

BUT IF ONE remembers back to 2014, the reason that Quinn lost to Rauner is supposedly because he was weak in downstate Illinois.

Actually, despised is more the word that was used to describe why rural voters were willing to back a rich guy from the North Shore suburbs over Quinn. The only county out of Illinois’ 102 that Quinn won was Cook. The rest of the state map from November 2014 was a solid shade of red.

Even in the primary election held in March of that year, there was evidence that Quinn was not the preferred candidate outside of Chicago.

Quinn actually managed to lose the vote in a few counties of Southern Illinois, where the distaste for Quinn was such that they voted for opponent Tio Hardiman – even though I suspect they knew nothing about him, and when they eventually learned of his views on gun control (he’s heavily concerned about urban violence – head of the CeaseFire Illinois group), they wished they could vote for nobody.

HARDIMAN IS ACTUALLY trying again to run for governor this time, and the Simon Institute poll shows him running last out of the six candidates with zero percent in downstate Illinois. Even perpetual fringe candidate Robert Marshall manages with 1 percent support.

How many of Tio's '14 backers still support him for gov?

So what does it say that many of the people eager to dump Quinn back in ’14 now seem to be supporting him? Should we regard that election cycle as a fluke? Or is the fluke the election cycle occurring now?

Is Quinn being forgiven for the misdeeds people constantly accused him of four years ago. Or perhaps it is the sight of what we replaced Quinn with for the past few years that makes some people think perhaps he ought to be given another chance.

Regardless, it will be interesting to see how this eight-way electoral fight manages to turn out, since it will be possible for someone with only about 25 percent support to win the Democratic nomination. Which could wind up being Raoul – although I’ll admit the thought of a Quinn/Harold debate come October is one I’d find amusing.

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