You heard it here first, folks.
Illinois has long been a breeding ground for presidential wannabees, including several senators, (Durbin, Obama, Anderson, Percy) as well as several governors (Bloggo STILL has his presidential PAC in existence, even though it remains dormant)
Now for the breaking news.
This weekend, I rubbed elbows with several people from State gov, in various capacities. They all had the same message. Bruce Rauner, a billionaire thief and current governor of Illinois, has set up plans and hired people to plan out his run for the presidency in 2020. He has conducted background checks and has begun searching for the top advisors to aid in his upcoming run.
According to at least one reliable source, who works within the State government, Rauner was on the fence about any presidential run, until the current clown car campaigns from the GOP contestants began making such fools of themselves. The pathetic state of the nomination was the final brick in his campaign wall.
Even if a GOPer wins in 2016, Rauner suspects that the craziness that will follow any of the remaining nominees will make that person unelectable in 2020, leaving it open for a big state governor, who by any measure is conservative.
Let's take a sober look at Rauner's record.
UNIONS & LABOR
Rauner has received unfair criticism from many sources, including here at Daily Kos, claiming that Bruce Rauner is anti-union. Nothing could be further from the truth. He isn't anti-union, he is anti-labor. As he glances up north to see the mayhem that Walker has created in our sister state, he sees a roadmap with which to do even more harm to labor, to unions, and to the underemployed. He cut funds that directly help poor and unemployed get jobs. He is refusing to fund daycare that allows poor, often single parents work at a decent job while having their children safely cared for. He has cut funds for disabled adults, forcing parents and family to choose between a paying job and caring for their family.
TAXES
Unlike Scott Walker, Rauner has consistently held that the 1%ers are too highly taxed. He rejected former Gov. Quinn's solution of an income tax hike, especially on the rich. Instead, he plans to increase taxes on various services, hitting the poor the hardest. He will push for even more tax cuts, especially for the wish, as he is a firmly confirmed NeoCon TeaBugger, but without the funny hats. I doubt that there exists one ALEC tax plan that he does not support. In summary, he wants to do to Illinois what Walker has tried to do to Wisconsin, but with more bite.
TRANSPORTATION
Like most limo passengers, he does not see the need for public transportation (ignoring the millions of daily rides taken on METRA, RTA, and the CTA - the Chicagoland area rapid transit, train, & bus systems serving more than 10,000,000 people 7 days a week) and plans to cut any funds for expansion. He does support some highway construction, but will demand dollar for dollar cuts in social programs to fund a dollar in construction funds.
MINIMUM WAGE
Clearly, he chooses his economists with great care. If they work for the Heritage Foundation, perhaps he might find their oddball theories acceptable.
During his campaign, he first proposed, then "retracted" the idea of CUTTING the minimum wage in Illinois. As recently as the end of last year, he said the business climate in Illinois would drastically improve if there were NO Minimum wage. Imagine what he would do as president.
EDUCATION
Rauner is extremely close to the man who has done more damage to the USA's educational system than anyone else - Arne Duncan. Charter schools? especially with his corporate friends running them? You Betcha.
CONCEALED CARRY
Like any good ALEC loving, Koch supporting, gun lover, the NRA ranks Rauner extremely highly, which just about says it all.
As plainly as I can say this, Bruce Rauner represents one of the biggest threats to democracy that you can imagine. Think of the worst combination of Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, with the financial backing of a Jeb!. He will run for president, and he may very well be nominated, by the same idiots on the right that think congress doesn't work because it is too liberal.
He is well spoken, he is educated, and he is a smooth liar. He also has a revenge-seeking genetic make up that is on the level of a Richard Nixon. If you cross him, not only will he get you fired, he will piss on your corpse, kill your family, and threaten your friends.
He got one reporter fired from his job because he accurately reported on the more unsavory aspects of Bruce.
If you want to light his fuse, ask him about the number of deaths he contributed to by cutting staff and resources at his several nursing homes. Ask about the medicare/medicaid fraud that his companies apparently were involved in.
It was with great interest that I read several headlines about this creep. Jim Edgar, a former GOP governor of Illinois, was on his election committee, and until recently, was a committed supporter of his. Not any longer.
“State government’s probably in the worst state it’s been in the 47 years that I’ve been around (it),” Edgar, a fellow Republican, told The State Journal-Register in an interview from his Springfield home. “You’ve got dozens and dozens of programs that aren’t being funded, agencies that are having trouble doing their mission, and I just think it’s very unfortunate.
“We need a budget. These other issues, they’re important, some of them I think more important than others, but you don’t hold the budget hostage to get those. … It has been very destabilizing for state government. I think a lot of people have suffered.”
Rauner vetoed most of the budget the General Assembly passed last spring, saying it was out of balance. He did sign the education budget, so elementary and secondary schools have been receiving state funds for the fiscal year that began July 1. In all, about 90 percent of state spending — at last year’s levels — is going out under court orders, consent decrees and state statutes.
Edgar, who was a lawmaker and secretary of state before serving as governor from 1991 to 1999, campaigned for Rauner in the general election last year, and he said he repeatedly told Rauner of the importance of having a budget.
“I think he listened,” Edgar said. “I don’t think he necessarily agreed with it, apparently.”
For the non-drinking moderate (personally conservative, but governing moderately, especially by today's standards) to turn on Rauner in this way, it is like a tsunami in Illinois politics. It basically says that Rauner is a menace (once you translate Edgar's ever so nice speech patterns) and blames him for the mess Illinois is in today.
Given how his presidential ambitions have suddenly become news in Springpatch, I wonder how coincidental Edgar's surprise attack on Rauner really is. Edgar could and did work with anyone. He was a concerned public official with not a hint of a stain on his record. But for his heart issues, he would have been a top contender for a presidential run. For him to turn on Rauner is simply amazing. And telling.