Louisville, IL—Last week, farmer and business owner Darren Bailey released a scathing video lambasting Governor J.B. Pritzker for running a TV ad, paid for by his family’s billions of dollars, attacking Bailey for how he operated his farm during the Pritzker lockdowns.
“Governor Pritzker wouldn’t know a hard day’s work if it slapped him across the face,” Darren Bailey said. “I challenge J.B. Pritzker to come down to my farm and spend a day planting, plowing, and harvesting. We’ll see how much energy he has at the end of an 18-hour work day to lob his pathetic attacks.”
Bailey’s comments were in response to a 30-second ad the Pritzker campaign launched last week in which Pritzker says taxpayers are paying for the Bailey bid for governor.
(Nowhere does Pritzker mention the millions upon millions of tax dollars the Pritzker Administration is dispersing for pet projects for select areas where the governor needs more voter enthusiasm – such as the $17.5 million Rend Lake Lodge renovation.)
State Rep. Charles Meier, R-Highland, said southern Illinois towns have heard these promises before but have not seen any follow-through from the state, the Center Square wrote.
“We have had projects before when we get close to election time that has been promised,” Meier told The Center Square. “However, this money never really seems to roll in. He can promise all he wants, but show up with a check in hand if you want to help southern Illinois.”
But here’s the governor’s attack:
And Bailey’s response:
Friends, I wanted to take a moment to address out-of-touch billionaire J.B.’s latest attack…
Get this…J.B. Pritzker has the gall to run a TV ad attacking me for running a business and doing whatever it takes to keep people employed during tough times.
J.B. Pritzker, you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth. You inherited billions of dollars from your family. You have millions stashed away on islands most folks have never heard of, let alone visited. You’ve never woken up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat worrying about keeping a job or managing payroll. You’ve literally never worked a day in your life.
And you’re criticizing me for how I run my farm? How dare you.
You’re the trust fund kid on the school playground pushing all the regular kids around and making fun of their bagged lunches.
You’re the guy who ignores the speeding limit on your custom-made one-of-a-kind boat while the rest of us worry about the price of gas.
Let me tell you what a hard day’s work looks like.
It’s waking up before the sun comes up to pack 18 hours of hard physical labor into a single day during harvest.
It’s putting on your work boots, running tractors, plowing fields, and bandaging up calloused hands so you can wake up the following day and do it all over again.
It’s worrying about crops when the weather is too dry, too wet, too hot, or too cold.
It’s exhaustion in every bone in your body, but knowing people and jobs depend on you to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
All over Illinois, there are people like me—farmers, yes, but also truck drivers, plumbers, electricians, grocery workers, mechanics, and so many others who put in the hours and sweat to provide for their families.
These regular, working folks make our state great and they’ll be the driving force behind our state’s recovery. People like you and your Gold Coast friends are running our home into the ground.
Governor Pritzker, you’re spending millions of dollars of your family’s money to attack me for how I run my business—the business I built with my own two hands. You sit around with your soft hands, laughing with your snooty friends at the downstate farmer who thinks he can make a difference.
Well, you got one thing wrong. I don’t think I can make a difference. I KNOW I can make a difference because I know what it takes to work hard and build something, and you don’t have a clue.
