Had Senator Clinton won in 2016, Republican incumbent Bruce Rauner believes his chances of winning re-election would have been much better. He also begged four other Republicans to run for governor in his place in 2018.
That's what he told ABC 7's Craig Walls in an exclusive interview Thursday:
Rauner told Walls: "… I said I'll step aside, I'll give you huge financial resources, you run for governor, I'll support you. You have as good or better chance to get elected than me. All four of them said no, too tough, too unlikely, too difficult…"
And with a candidate at the top of the IL GOP ticket that alienated half the IL GOP base, the energized Progressive wing of the Democrat Party ushered in a Blue Tsunami that swept away with it key members of Congress, key conservatives in the Illinois General Assembly – all the way down to collar county board majorities that will take a toll on the state's political system for decades.
According to political insiders, Wall said, Rauner's requests were made both before and after State Rep. Jeanne Ives nearly defeated him in the GOP primary with a budget that was a fraction of Rauner's.
Rauner spent millions to convince downstate conservatives that Ives was a tool of Mike Madigan – when nothing could have been further from the truth. Ives didn't withhold her disgust with Rauner's revelations Thursday evening. On her Facebook page she wrote:
So Rauner admits he didn't want to run. It was obvious to me.
He failed to relentlessly go after JB on property tax fraud and accurately describe it as letting the political elite have a different set of rules to live under.
He failed to put together a vote by mail program.
He failed to box JB in on his plans to fix pensions – the biggest state and local issue that feeds the property tax burden.
He just failed. And now the rest of you know why.
Illinois Review readers voiced their disgust when a link was posted on Illinois Review's Facebook page:
And there's more on Illinois Review's Facebook Page HERE:
