Bruce Rauner--the new Jacob Marley...or a Romney wannabe

Bruce Rauner has been stomping on Illinois for the Republican Primary. He's been rallying against the "union bosses" and praising charter schools. Now? He wants to lower the minimum wage in Illinois which put a big smile on the other three Republican candidates. See, this is another chip in his "just a regular guy" armor. The whole nation, when polled, is in favor of raising the minimum wage to at least $10 an hour. Rauner wants to lessen our minimum wage which is $1 above the federal. So, then, he tried to pedal back...in the northern regions...thinking that the Southern areas wouldn't compare what was said in the Northern areas.
See, Illinois is the only state that travels through the "rust" belt, the "corn" belt and the "bible" belt of America...we are a microcosm of the USA in many ways( and yes, we have our tech belt also...and we're getting pretty good at wine also!). We have a very diverse population, but, I would venture a guess that none of us like being played for a fool and most of us have, at least, a TV and access to what candidates say in all areas of the state.
Mr. Rauner loves to do his commercials in Cabella gear and his $18 watch, but I really doubt that's how he looks at board meetings at his venture capitalist groups. In fact, let's talk about his home "roots".
To ensure that his daughter could get into one of the most prestigious charter schools in Illinois, he first bought and used the address of condo that's near Millennium Park. When it was shown that he used influence(and maybe a $250K bribe...err...donation) to the Walter Payton Charter school, he tries brushing away the reports by saying his daughter was good enough grade wise, it was because of illness that she didn't automatically qualify.This is just another political attack on him. Sorry, Mr. Rauner, but I'm sure there are many children who could qualify, grade wise, but because of absenteeism, were refused, but didn't have the ability to pull out $250K to smooth over the questions or to call their "friend", Arne Duncan(who was head of schools in Chicago at that time), to get some dispensation for their child.
Then there's the Stuart Levine thing.....
Stuart Levine is legendary in Illinois politics as a "fixer", he's testified for the prosecution against Rod Blagojevich, William Cellini and Tony Rezko and was sentenced to his own 5 year sentence for money laundering and fraud. Mr. Rauner's ties with him? Mr. Levine was paid a salary of $25,000 a month by one of Rauner's companies to acquire government contracts. Twenty Five Thousand dollars a MONTH. So, being fair minded, I looked to see how Mr. Rauner answered questions about this. He didn't. All he said is it just another political attack. I don't know about anyone else, but when I'm looking at a candidate, specially for governor, I'd like to think I'm smart enough NOT to vote for the guy who has ties with a convicted felon who took down another governor--this already smells really bad. 
Then, comes the "fund-raising". Mr. Rauner's campaign is very proud of their "fund-raising" skills, having about $4 Million dollars. They don't mention that $3 Million has been donated by the candidate himself! So, in reality, the campaign has raised less than $1 Million. Yes, that's a good amount of change, but it doesn't mean that he has so much support, it means he can self-fund his campaign because he's a multi-millionaire/billionaire.
And let us not forget that last, "Regular guy that I'd like to have a beer with"...GeeDubya...2 illegal wars, the worst recession(I'd say depression) since 1930 and how many unneeded deaths and anger toward our country? Rauner ain't that much different, knows how to go walmart and laugh all the way to the bank as he screws the working poor and middle class.

Illinois Politics, the Newest Soap Opera

In Illinois we are facing a very dark gubernatorial election; Governor Pat Quinn on the Democratic side and the four Stooges on the Republican side: third timer State Senator Pat Brady(the author of the "KILL THE PUPPIES" bill fame--he authored a bill that would allow mass euthanasia of shelter dogs by gas chamber), State Senator Kirk Dillard(who used to be a moderate republican, now has become a SKY IS FALLING teabagger shill), State Treasurer Dan Rutherford and carpetbagger....er...venture capitalist Bruce Rauner.
OK, so now you know how much respect I have for them, but I'm not supposed to, I'm the Union Thug Gramma! Oh, but there's not much love going on in the republican camps either....
Seems there's a new attack ad against Kirk Dillard, who, in many ways has been written off as a "has-been" because of how he ran so far to the right after the 2010 primary. Even tho he's had trouble raising money, mainly because of this turnabout from moderate to batshit crazy rightwing nutjob(OK, I'll take the nutjob back, he really isn't), that the right doesn't know which Kirk Dillard is going to show up for the governor's mansion. But, it seems that someone is trying to muddy the waters. See, Dillard has always said that Jim Edgar(Governor after Thompson, during the 90's--one term) and this video first uses the song, "I touch Myself" from the 90's and ends with saying this video was brought to you by Kirk Dillard and friends at MSI--which was a soft core scandal of Edgars that surfaced in 2000.
And then, there's the new group, Republican Fund for Progress and Jobs that just recently formed. The Head of this group is the former Aaron Schock Chief of Staff, Steven Shearer, Schock is another teabagger(aka batshit crazy) who is supposed to represent Peoria and Springfield(among other areas) in congress, but can't seem to ever make it out to his Peoria office, feeling much more comfortable in what could be called Illinois' beltway-Springfield. Now, this new group is saying they are just trying to educate voters about the candidates, but when Schock was thinking about running for Governor, Rauner paid for attack ads against him. Think maybe that might come back to haunt him? I hope so.
Now, Rauner has gotten the endorsement of the Cook County Republican Party(wow, all 30 of them?), but it still may become a primary Heathers trap---real bloody and lots of bad publicity. 
And that's fine with me. Let's get the red meat out now and hope that people vote for someone who actually cares about the people of Illinois, not just the bottom dollar of campaign funds.
OH. The other big high school drama is "WHO'S BEING NICE TO DEMOCRATS...EWWWWWW" There have been push issues about Dillard giving less than $1000 to the Obama Inauguration Fund, not his campaign fund, but after he was elected. A whole $ 924. Like that was gonna make a difference, what, you think that paid for a table of republicans to go to the balls? The way the batshit crazy rightwing media is spinning it, you'd think that Dillard financed Obama's presidential campaign by himself!
On the other hand we have Rauner...who has given truckloads to Rahm Immanuel and,{PERISH THE THOUGHT} maybe even MIKE MADIGAN(OK, I feel I need drama music) and all of this will be coming out.
OK, gotta admit, love the hysterical drama queen persona of the republicant party when they turn it on themselves. Seems to fit well.