He didn’t have much of a choice. The Combine wasn’t going to allow him to run for reelection. They would destroy him in the primary or he’d be taken out in the general. Both parties in IL (controlled by the Combine) opposed him.
Rauner is holding firm against Madigan and Cullerton regarding the Illinois budget. I hope it works. I think he’s actually challenging the combine because one of the PACs associated with his former campaign allies have over $30 million to fight against those that seek to make him like jello like the rest of the combine.
Well, he did have a choice. Fight or flee. He fled, I don’t blame him, he’d probably have lost the fight, it’s hard to win when “your” own side stick knives in your back. But we’ll never win as long as men like Fitzgerald flee. We need Elliot Ness types here. Reformers who will shirk away when the hammer starts to come down do us no good.
As for Rauner, a great many here believed he was pure scum, I believed he MIGHT be pure scum. I voted for him anyway without reservation because we had not a damn thing to lose. I had some hope he wouldn’t be that bad, after all the unions did go all out to try and nominate the ostensibly more conservative (socially anyway) Dillard as the Republican nominee over him. Dillard the Obama quasi-endorser. They didn’t do that for no reason.
I don’t view the combine as a “you’re in or out” thing. It’s a continuum. There are decent people who “go along” some of the time out of fear or convenience. Rauner is not a conservative and he is an ally of Rahm (who unfortunately is “right-wing” for Chicago, I live here and had to vote for him over the commie Mexican idiot) and his damn wife is full fledged democrat. But....
So far, I see him trying to do good things, at least he appears to be doing so. It’s early in his tenure. He doesn’t appear to be Madigan’s bitch boy. Unfortunately Madigan has 60% of both Houses so his veto pen is worth dirt if the rats hold their ranks.
As for Hastert, someone on this thread said “we all heard the rumors”. That he was a pederast? I never heard any such thing until now, most people seem to be shocked, Hastert is not Mark Foley, it was an open secret HE was a brokeback rump ranger who pinged every gaydar from Key West to DC.
Ping to post #54.