Mike Klonsky tries to figure out why Governor Pat Quinn of Illinois is running behind in the polls to hedge fund manager Bruce Rauner, whom he dubs “the worst person in the world.”
Rauner has spent a boatload of money on the race, but Klonsky doesn’t think that explains it.
Quinn’srunning mate Paul Vallas has been no help, but that doesn’t explain it.
Klonsky’s analysis: Quinn has run a bad campaign and failed to excite his own base.
He writes:
“My assessment? This is one of the worst the-other-guy’s-a-crook (“unpatriotic”) campaigns in recent memory, which has to work in favor of the guy with the most money. Quinn’s campaign has been pitiful, giving even the most avowed Rauner haters little to get excited about. Despite receiving gobs of money from the state’s unions, Quinn has done nothing to win back the trust and support of the state’s 850,000 union workers and especially its 87,000 retired teachers who he shafted with his support for the (unconstitutional on its face) pension-robbing SB-1 legislation. That is precisely the group of angry, activist voters who could put Quinn back on top.
“Even Quinn’s support for an increase in the state’s minimum wage has been tepid. On an issue that could rally the base, the governor supports a measly buck-seventy-five-cent increase in the minimum wage (hardly livable) and that, only in a non-binding resolution. Pathetic.
“And barely a word since April regarding public education funding, charter school expansion, school closings or much of anything else.”
If you can’t win your base, you are in big trouble.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I wonder if there is a secret money trail to follow there? Anyone possibly “influence” Klonsky to run a tepid campaign?
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You mean Quinn running a tepid campaign. Klonsky’s not running for anything.
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Posted on Klonsky’s blog this a.m.:
Quinn’s betrayal of educators and working families is coming back to bite him in the rump, big time. I’ve been phone banking for Quinn (lesser of two evils). The response fro reliable D’s is tepid at best. Too many regular D’s are saying they don’t like Quinn and will be supporting Rauner. Rauner has enough baggage to sink him, but Quinn’s campaign management team is doing little to let the public know. Quinn himself is ego-driven and kowtows to Madigan and the big donors.
He made it a point to burn teachers and brag it up. Now, when we approach teachers about helping with phone banking, they decline to get involved.
If Quinn loses the election, he has only himself to blame,
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P.S. Too many teachers remember how Obama burned them after he used them to help with his 2012 re-election campaign.
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I’m sorry, but I don’t understand why teachers would have been willing to be used to help Obama win in 2012. He’d already made his education agenda quite clear by then.
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The incumbent fell in the primary in Hawaii.
http://www.staradvertiser.com/elections/20140809_governors_race_early_returns.html
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I don’t think ed reformers care about state races. Why should they? Quinn’s education agenda is identical to the other guy, what’s his name.
There is no substantive difference between Arne Duncan and John Kasich on public schools. None. They’re all trying to make this phony distinction on vouchers, as if that matters amid the 500 other anti-public school initiatives. They’ll fold on vouchers sooner rather than later anyway. They’ve adopted every other conservative “reform”. Seems silly to make a distinction there at this point.
President Obama raises one objection to vouchers and it’s that they don’t “work”. Presumably if they “worked” we’d get rid of public schools completely, or maybe keep 10% to serve as a safety net for a privatized “exchange”, like the role Medicaid plays in his health insurance plan. The rest of us will get a subsidy toward purchasing a “school plan” which will probably cover a lot less of the cost than the free universal public system does now.
We had one universal public system in this country and it was K-12 education. They’re busily turning it into our fragmented disaster of a health care system. Good job, Democrats! I didn’t think anyone was dumb enough to take an existing public system private looking at our health care system, but I underestimated them! They’re that reckless and delusional!
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Note to future gubernatorial candidates: don’t have a notorious enemy of one of your major constituencies as a running mate if you want real support for your campaign.
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I love how it doesn’t matter. Vallas can go work for the other guy if he wins, right?
What’s the difference? They may as well just play musical chairs. Elected with one guy or appointed by the other, Vallas or someone identical to him will be running public education anyway.
When they’re all wringing their hands over the lack of participation in elections does it ever occur to them that might be because they’re all the same small group of people? You can plug them in anywhere! IL, CT, LA. I’m surprised they remember the correct state name in stump speeches.
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Here’s Arne Duncan all but endorsing Snyder and his EAA in Detroit. They’re on the list of authorizers the MI state legislature is trying to regulate, an effort that will probably fail due to what looks like a complete capture of lawmakers and regulators.
Michigan ed reform is a disaster for public schools in that state, and the same is true in OH and WI. They may as well add IL and make it a clean sweep across the Great Lakes. It’s not like people in the midwest actually support public schools! We all hate our schools. Can’t wait to replace them with whatever Eli Broad’s vision is this week. Everyone in DC knows that!
http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2013/05/06/we-need-to-be-wildly-successful-says-u-s-education-sec-in-detroit/
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What happened to the tech guys who claimed to have had the secret sauce for getting the Obama win in 2012 and why haven’t they been brought out to do their magic for Quinn, when Rauner has resorted to using tech strategies in order to get votes?
I don’t watch TV commercials, but HULU traps people into watching them, because you can’t fast forward or even rewind without triggering them, so I mute the ads. However, gazillionaire Rauner has saturated HULU with campaign commercials that include a lot of bold text, where he trashes Quinn and makes faux claims that this he is going to “get rid of corporate welfare” and “stop corporate giveaways.”
Rauner is the guy who said earlier this year that he wanted to LOWER the minimum wage in our state, which is higher than the federal minimum wage by about a buck. After a lot of flack, he backtracked and said he misspoke and supports a minimum wage concession tied to the federal minimum wage as long as it is “pro-business.”
If Rauner is ahead in the polls, there must me a lot of gullible and ignorant people in Illinois who actually think that Rauner’s “pro-business” stance would not take precedence over pro-worker policies in virtually all arenas.
I was not going to vote for Quinn, primarily due to his choice of Vallas as his running mate, but there is no way I would ever vote for Rauner or even vote 3rd party if it means Rauner might win. I’ve never seen any Quinn ads on HULU to counteract Rauner’s propaganda, so I think Quinn should be buying up a lot of ad space there, too.
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“How Bruce Rauner Would Block a Minimum Wage Hike in Illinois: The Republican gubernatorial candidate firms his pro-business position on the hot topic”
http://www.nbcchicago.com/blogs/ward-room/Bruce-Rauner-minimum-wage-increase-Illinois-governor-election-264751911.html
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This sounds like Darth Vader is running against the Star Wars Emperor. There is no choice. Looks like a very small voter turnout where only the fools vote.
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Tragic but it seems like this is what is happening more and more.
Choose the LEAST offensive person for whom to vote.
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Perhaps with a Quinn loss others will take note, do not kill your support in a figurative sense, you might need it later. Rauner seems like a lousy choice, but for teachers no different than Quinn and Vallas. They both have the same policies and disdain for teachers, but Rauner is up front about it and can be openly fought. Next time a friend of education may actually be a friend. A painful defeat may be needed to shake the democrats up instead of just assuming teachers have no where else to go and will support the anyway. Maybe this becomes a model to gain respect, one step back and then we move forward again.
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Minimum wage is not livable in my city, and I know that personally, so I am not willing to leave the determination of whether my state increases or decreases minimum wage to the pro-business multi-millionaire Rauner. If he is willing to screw the working class, God only knows what else he will do to social programs in this state.
We have had some moderate Republican governors in this state in the recent past who were tolerable. If there was another GOP candidate like that, I might consider voting for him to send a message to the Democrats. But this man is a hard-right corporate elitist –who also happens to have a charter school here named after him…
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