IL-Gov. 2018 Megathread

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Not a big fan of Biss, despite his U of C ties - I remember he was linked to a lot of "pension reform" efforts.

He seems to have come around on that issue. Also, other than this, I've known him to be fairly progressive. Illinois really doesn't have any great candidates to run against Rauner, but I probably agree with Biss more than Kennedy and I think he would do better in a general than Pawar.

I'm holding out hope for Andy Manar, who has a proven record of winning downstate. He's also made a name as a friend of labor, engineered a good plan on school funding, and has made automatic voter registration one of his signature issues in Springfield.

I'd rather Manar run against Rodney Davis, tbh.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Not a big fan of Biss, despite his U of C ties - I remember he was linked to a lot of "pension reform" efforts.

He seems to have come around on that issue. Also, other than this, I've known him to be fairly progressive. Illinois really doesn't have any great candidates to run against Rauner, but I probably agree with Biss more than Kennedy and I think he would do better in a general than Pawar.

I'm holding out hope for Andy Manar, who has a proven record of winning downstate. He's also made a name as a friend of labor, engineered a good plan on school funding, and has made automatic voter registration one of his signature issues in Springfield.

I'd rather Manar run against Rodney Davis, tbh.

Davis isn't beatable, sorry.

Manar could definitely beat Davis, especially in a good Democratic year, sorry.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Rauner is probably the single most vulnerable incumbent in 2018.

And you truly have an amazing, uncorrupt, and competent opponent to run against him.

While I strongly support Biss in the primary (who fits that description pretty well), I don't think we need an A-lister to beat Rauner tbh.  It'd be nice and I worry about the Dems taking it for granted with Pritzker, but I still think he'd beat Rauner in the end barring some sort of new scandal (always possible).

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Rauner is probably the single most vulnerable incumbent in 2018.

And you truly have an amazing, uncorrupt, and competent opponent to run against him.

While I strongly support Biss in the primary (who fits that description pretty well), I don't think we need an A-lister to beat Rauner tbh.  It'd be nice and I worry about the Dems taking it for granted with Pritzker, but I still think he'd beat Rauner in the end barring some sort of new scandal (always possible).

You don't need an A-Lister, just someone besides Pritzker or Kennedy.

Pritzker can get the job done just fine.  I agree that Kennedy would lose though.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Congressman Brad Schneider (IL-10) has withdrawn his endorsement of Biss, on the basis that his LG candidate has a history of supporting BDS.

Can't say I blame him.  BDS are anti-Semitic weasels.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Congressman Brad Schneider (IL-10) has withdrawn his endorsement of Biss, on the basis that his LG candidate has a history of supporting BDS.

Which is really silly for a variety of reasons, but most notably that the Lieutenant Governor has no role in Middle East policymaking.......

You'll be judged by the company you keep. 

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Congressman Brad Schneider (IL-10) has withdrawn his endorsement of Biss, on the basis that his LG candidate has a history of supporting BDS.

Which is really silly for a variety of reasons, but most notably that the Lieutenant Governor has no role in Middle East policymaking.......

Disgusting purity politics.

Standing up against anti-semitism is not purity politics.  It's being a decent human being.

Standing up to that apartheid state of Israel is not anti-semitism.

Being anti-Israel doesn't necessarily make one anti-Semitic, but it has become the dogwhistle of choice for the anti-Semitic Left.  Also BDS is obviously a very anti-Semitic group.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Bliss drops Ramirez-Rosa from his ticket

Good man.  It's vital that Democrats give no quarter to the anti-Semitic Left.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Bliss drops Ramirez-Rosa from his ticket

Good man.  It's vital that Democrats give no quarter to the anti-Semitic Left.

Your forum name is literally Malcolm X

And your point is...what exactly?  On a different note, it is rather telling that you seem to oppose the Democratic Party condemning anti-Semitism.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Funny how liberals always chide leftists and progressives for their "purity politics" and supposed racism/sexism, yet are overjoyed when a gay Latino alderman gets kicked off the ticket for governor because of his stance on Israel/Palestine, something that the LG doesn't address.

Liberal and progressive are two buzzwords describing the same thing, you diplodocus.  

More importantly, being a gay Latino isn't some sort of magical get-out-of-jail free card for championing an anti-Semitic hate group.  And the fact that you guys keep conveniently choosing to ignore the real issue here suggests that (at best) the two of you have no problem with anti-Semitic dog whistles.  At the very least, Alpha likely holds some fairly anti-Semitic views based on his posts in this thread.  

Not gonna lie, many Jewish Democrats initially dropped the ball by waiting so long to start calling this sort of stuff what it is: blatant anti-Semitism.  The anti-Semitic Right has long been a serious problem in the U.S., but it's getting to be a real problem on the left too.  Fortunately, folks finally seem to be working on nipping this thing in the bud and the anti-Semitic Left doesn't do too well when someone shines a light on it.  That Dan Biss was forced to pull a McGovern in such a short amount of time despite trying to run as the "radical left-wing" candidate is a really good sign.  

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Also, I think that calling Israel an "apartheid state" is rather disingenuous. Israeli Arabs have equal rights and protections as Israeli Jews, and from what I remember most polling has them wanting to remain in Israel rather than joining a hypothetical Palestinian state.

Not only that, most speak Hebrew and self-identify as Israelis.  The Arab world (including the Palestinians) literally want nothing to do with Israeli Arabs since they consider them to be Jews and Hamas is almost as happy to try to kill them as it is to kill Israeli Jews.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Funny how liberals always chide leftists and progressives for their "purity politics" and supposed racism/sexism, yet are overjoyed when a gay Latino alderman gets kicked off the ticket for governor because of his stance on Israel/Palestine, something that the LG doesn't address.

Liberal and progressive are two buzzwords describing the same thing, you diplodocus.  

No they're not...?

As far as 95% or so of Americans are concerned, yes they are.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Fun fact: Turns out Ramirez-Rosa told Biss' campaign that he'd always opposed BDS shortly before his selection.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Fun fact: Turns out Ramirez-Rosa told Biss' campaign that he'd always opposed BDS shortly before his selection.

Rosa has opposed and continues to oppose BDS at a state and municipal level (voted against a resolution on the city council). He believes there is room for a nuanced debate nationally, Biss does not. Only the former issue came up, for obvious reasons, in the selection process for Lieutenant Governor of Illinois.


In other news, Biss is announcing State Rep. Litesa Wallace (D-Rockford) as his new Lt. Gov. candidate today. Rep. Brad Schneider, who de-endorsed Biss over the Rosa pick, has declined to re-endorse.

There's room for nuanced national debate about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  There is not any such room for "nuanced" debate over supporting anti-Semitic hate groups like BDS nor should there be.  They must be condemned in the strongest possible terms for the same reasons that it's vital for politicians to unambiguously condemn white supremacists.    

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

And again, everyone should be worried when Israel becomes the one topic you're not allowed to go against the status quo on.

The fact that you see no difference between criticizing someone for being anti-Israel and criticizing someone for being anti-Semitic is quite telling.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Fun fact: Turns out Ramirez-Rosa told Biss' campaign that he'd always opposed BDS shortly before his selection.

Rosa has opposed and continues to oppose BDS at a state and municipal level (voted against a resolution on the city council). He believes there is room for a nuanced debate nationally, Biss does not. Only the former issue came up, for obvious reasons, in the selection process for Lieutenant Governor of Illinois.


In other news, Biss is announcing State Rep. Litesa Wallace (D-Rockford) as his new Lt. Gov. candidate today. Rep. Brad Schneider, who de-endorsed Biss over the Rosa pick, has declined to re-endorse.

There's room for nuanced national debate about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  There is not any such room for "nuanced" debate over supporting anti-Semitic hate groups like BDS nor should there be.  They must be condemned in the strongest possible terms for the same reasons that it's vital for politicians to unambiguously condemn white supremacists.    

...but BDS isn't a hate group? You can't repeat something over and over and expect people who disagree with you to suddenly take your stance on the issue. I'm not passionate about this issue and I'm actually more sympathetic to the pro-Israel side (I can understand why Sunrise and such have the opinions that they do since they and their family actually a personal connection to Israel) than a lot of others on the hard-left, but boycott, divestment, and sanctions is a legitimate tactic of protest against nation-states one deems to be oppressive. You can disagree with their labeling of Israel as such, but neither BDS nor DSA are "hate groups".

I don't really know anything about DSA so I can't comment on them, but BDS is very much an anti-Semitic hate group for the reasons Gustaf and others have discussed elsewhere in this thread.  

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

BDS supports punishing individual Israelis for the "crime" of being Israeli. The radical left has never been a reliable ally in the fight for human rights but it's important for the mainstream left to be clear about those issues. 

Err...William Z. Foster was a diehard supporter of Stalin.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Err...William Z. Foster was a diehard supporter of Stalin.

The addition that the person was Stalinist further underlines my original point.

Looks like the Stalinists were ahead of the kind moderate liberals on civil rights.

Pretty sure that MLK's quote is referring to so-called "moderates" on civil rights rather than liberals (who frankly did far more to advance African-American civil rights on an actual policy level than whites on the far-left fringe, but don't let facts get in your way.

Also, Stalin fanboys like Foster are almost by definition turning a blind eye to - if not, outright rationalizing or even praising - the rampant crimes against  humanity committed by Stalin's regime.  Hardly reliable allies in the struggle for human rights, to say the least.

More "anti-Israel=antisemitic" nonsense in this thread.

Claiming that those condemning anti-Semitism are somehow claiming anti-Israel = anti-Semitism seems to be the pro-BDS crowd's version of Donald Trump's "antifa is just as bad as the neo-Nazis/the KKK" BS.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Since Drury is no longer in the race, I have decided to support Rauner's re-election.

I'll alert the press.

I tried, but they didn't care either.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

This isn’t about the Governor’s race, but apparently the IL Senate Majority Caucus Chair has lost his post due to a sexual harassment scandal.  That’s actually the second recent sexual harassment scandal (the first being involving the KY House Speaker) to occur fairly recently and while Congress operates under unique rules designed to make it incredibly difficult to bring such allegations against members and their staff, I wonder if we’re going to start seeing the floodgates open at the state legislative level.  I’d assumed IL was so corrupt that someone this powerful wouldn’t be brought down by this sort of scandal, but I’m glad I was proven wrong.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

I think only Pritzker can lose against Rauner, he may even depress Dem turnout.

This is an incredibly optimistic assessment of Chris Kennedy's skills as a candidate.

And yeah, Biss isn't taking off because not many folks are thrilled to vote for a pension thief. Not too complicated.

That and he also came out of the CRR incident looking pretty bad regardless of one’s views on BDS.  

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Ives jumps the shark with her new ad against Rauner.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d57WlyvHA-I

WTF is wrong these people?

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Question for you all, does anyone have any idea what the AG race is looking like?  Is the People's Pat gonna win the D Primary?

Quinn's definitely the frontrunner, Raoul has most of the institutional support. I'll probably be voting for Raoul (which I'm not happy about, but he's the one with the best shot of winning) as the not-Quinn, but I expect Quinn will win.

Mariotti doesn't have a shot, does he

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-met-jb-pritzker-bahama-offshore-shell-company-20180313-story.html

Thank God he's gonna be the nominee in 2018 and not a normal year.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Biss or Pritzker should win the GE pretty easily simply due to the political environment.  Plus, Rauner is pretty unpopular IIRC.  I mean, you can’t completely rule out the possibility of some huge late-breaking scandal with Pritzker, but it’d have to be pretty bad for Rauner to be competitive.  This one could end up being a blowout and the only reason I don’t have it at Likely D is that Rauner can pour so much money into the race.