By Illinois Review
In a Facebook post on Tuesday, former Illinois State Senator and Republican nominee for governor Darren Bailey publicly called for the first time for IL GOP chairman Don Tracy to “step down,” writing,
“Enough with this nonsense! The Republican Party wants to distract from their failures by blaming the candidates that they have no control over! THE PEOPLE PICK THE CANDIDATES! Mr. Tracy, I have been patient with you, but it’s time to follow Jim Durkin’s lead and step down. The Republican Party Platform has the answers to all of our state’s problems. We simply need real leadership and candidates who will stand For The People!!!”
Two hours later, Bailey made another Facebook post, featuring a picture of his grandchild having a visceral reaction after tasting a lemon, with the comment,
“That look I get from my grandchildren when I try to have a conversation about the future of Illinois under current state party leadership…”
The post was in response to Tracy, who on Monday, appeared on Bishop on Air on WMAY radio and blamed Bailey for midterm election losses, and said the IL GOP needs to re-evaluate their primary election neutrality policy moving forward.
A move that would most certainly prevent another conservative grassroots candidate like Bailey from winning a gubernatorial primary in the future.
During the shocking interview, Tracy said,
“And a lot of these great candidates we had this past time put their heart and soul and their family treasure into these races only to be impacted by the top of the ticket, something they have no control over…So I think we almost have a fiduciary duty to look at our primary and determine whether neutrality is the best policy.”
To suggest that candidates put their “family treasure” into the campaigns and yet fail to mention the Bailey family sacrifices is an insult. Just a month before the general election, Bailey’s mother Jean donated $700,000 to his campaign.
Bailey’s family treasure significantly dwarfs, by many multiples, the contribution of any other candidate in the general election to his or her campaign.
During the primary, Bailey defeated Tracy and the IL GOP’s preferred candidate Richard Irvin by a whopping 43 points.
And for Tracy to admit publicly that the IL GOP should re-evaluate whether neutrality was the best policy during the primary is shocking. It should go without saying that the Illinois Republican Party should remain neutral during the primary.
Let the people decide who will represent them – not a few out of touch political insiders like Tracy and the IL GOP.
Bailey was right then and he is right now.
Let “THE PEOPLE PICK THE CANDIDATES!”
As this tweet from Red State Jennifer Van Laar will indicate, we’re less than 24 hours knowing what color the smoke will be out of the chimney at the RNC winter meeting in SoCal:
https://twitter.com/jenvanlaar/status/1618532797651783681
Will the “168” voting members of the RNC reelect Ronna Romney-McDaniel to a 4th term as chair of RNC, or will a new direction be chosen under the leadership of Harmeet Dhillon, currently the National Committeewoman from the state of California.
The secret balloting begins tomorrow morning. Will it be another House Speaker balloting, or will one ballot settle the race?
IL GOP Chair Don Tracy should heed Darren Bailey’s call and resign if the RNC votes to change direction with the election of a new chair.
Tracy dead wrong to put the blame on Bailey’s candidacy. Many downballot candidates did highly questionable things for the fall campaign and if something emerged nationally and in Illinois, Republican nominees needed to STOP listening to questionable advice of campaign consultants.
For example, ignoring abortion and talking about inflation, the Southern border and kitchen table issues was recipe for disaster.
Take Catalina Lauf of Woodstock, who was the Republican nominee in IL-11 against 7-term Congressman Bill Foster in a redrawn district that was 55% new for Foster.
Lauf, who won an unimpressive primary win over 5 weak primary opponents, hired establishment Republican Derek Murphy, former IL GOP executive director and senior political advisor to Richard Irvin’s gubernatorial campaign, as her GC (they worked together in 2018 for then-Governor Rauner’s reelection campaign). Within 2 months, he had Lauf strip her campaign website of her pro-life stance (remember how that worked for Irvin?), as well as her support for the 2nd Amendment.
Additionally, Lauf followed questionable advice to not engage the media, particularly the Daily Herald and Crain’s Chicago Business and was nailed when she spouted a conspiracy theory about litterboxes in schools for kids to use to defecate if they thought they were a “furry” in early October.
But in spite of raising $2 million, Lauf was not on broadcast TV with commercials, and Foster’s campaign aggressively spent over $4 million through an effective “MAGA” TV commercial tying Lauf to anti-abortion extremists and January 6 Capitol rioters.
While it is fair the top of the ticket (Bailey and U.S. Senate nominee Kathy Salvi) gave little help to Lauf and other downballot nominees in competitive races, many downballot candidates suffered by taking questionable advice.
Locally, Republican nominees refused to debate their Democratic opponents openly, choosing to ignore candidate forum appearances. Only a candidate in a position of strength can get away with such a move, and Lauf and many others did not have that, even though Foster had accepted an invitation to debate Lauf in early October.
The IL GOP has a long way to go before it can be competitive statewide again, but if the RNC shows leadership and removes Ronna Romney-McDaniel from RNC chair, then IL GOP Chair Don Tracy should follow the lead his fellow state chairs and national committeepersons did and resign as IL GOP chair.
BREAKING: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis endorses Harmeet Dhillon for RNC chair saying change is needed!
Video embedded:
https://twitter.com/FLVoiceNews/status/1618667170954895362
Darren Bailey believes Plan B is worse than Zyklon B. He has no business telling anyone anything.