Campaign 'Fire Pritzker': "This devastation and destruction for our children can never happen again.”
Republican candidate for governor admonishes Governor Pritzker for recent legal defeats but more strident messaging needed for opposition to mount challenge
Standing in front of a podium inside a cramped Libertyville health food store, Darren Bailey made his pitch for why he should be the next governor of Illinois.
Bailey, born and raised on a farm in rural Illinois, spoke with clarity and certainty about how to best categorize his candidacy in the race to unseat Democratic incumbent J.B. Pritzker.
“This is a grassroots movement, not a campaign,” Bailey said, currently an Illinois state senator from the 55th district. “I’m looking forward to being here a year from now as your new governor. Let’s make sure we fire J.B. Pritzker.”
Bailey may prefer to dismiss ‘political campaign’ in favor of ‘grassroots movement’ but “Fire Pritzker” sure sounds like a catchy campaign slogan to me.
And a visually compelling slogan when printed on signs, stacks of which were handed out during the March 3 appearance in front of 50 or so people.
We are less than three months away from the Republican primary for Illinois governor, held June 28. Thus far, five candidates have declared as challengers to Gov. Pritzker. Bailey and the other four (Paul Schimpf, Jesse Sullivan, Gary Rabine, Richard Irvin) face an uphill climb to unseat the incumbent.
According to a January poll conducted by Victory Research, the closest challenger to Pritzker is Rabine, who trails by a 24-point margin (52%-28%).
The same poll tracks Bailey with 27% of the vote (Pritzker at 55%).
“I don’t believe what’s in the polls,” Bailey told The Kerr Report in a brief interview after his speech and meet and greet session.
What Bailey does believe in are traditional, conservative views – less government, less taxes, pro-life. On the subject of a hot 2022 election issue prefers “school choice to take back our schools’ education and eliminate JB’s mandates and return power to you the parent and the local school board.”
Crime and the economy are always big ticket campaign issues. But any challenger to the governor has a topical issue to leverage fresh on the minds of thousands of voters – how Covid-related public health mitigations harmed children. And how the governor’s use of executive power to enact those restrictions (forced masking, vaccine mandates) are on record in the judicial court system as being unlawful.
Heck, it took the Illinois Supreme Court less than a week to reject Pritzker’s appeal.
For gubernatorial candidates like Bailey, they should be hammering these facts home any chance they can. Every day, before every appearance, front and center in morning meetings with communications staffers, how can one of the first questions asked not be “how do we leverage court rulings against Pritzker in an attempt to chip away at his lead in the polls?”
I asked just that question to Bailey.
“I’m so thankful Judge Grischow (the Sangamon County judge who heard TRO case) and her love for freedom. Then the appellate court wouldn’t hear the case and the Supreme Court said ‘no, this is a moot point,’” he said. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that (Illinois Department of Public Heath Director Dr. Ngozi) Ezike stepped down from her position (March 1) because I think the truth will be made known soon that this devastation and destruction for our children can never happen again.”
No it can’t. And the opposition, Bailey being one of them, have a rare opportunity on the campaign (or ‘grassroots movement’) trail to remind eligible voters that the ‘devastation and destruction for our children’ can happen again if Pritzker is re-elected.
Pritzker has yet to concede defeat in the ISC ruling. In fact, he declared victory from the outcome, saying he was “gratified” the justice’s vacated Grischow’s TRO, and interpreted the court’s brief one-paragraph order to mean his authority to issue any future school mask mandates is still in tact.
Does that sound like someone ready to concede power?
Inside Murphy’s Health Foods and Juice Bar, the host of the event, a former teacher stands in an aisle way holding a petition sheet.
The petition sheet is for Tom DeVore, the lead attorney on the legal actions that led the TRO ruling and ISC appeal rejection. DeVore, who accompanied Bailey at the Libertyville stop, is now running for Attorney General.
“I’m here to support the process. I want some republicans on the ballot,” Laura Starr said, holding a clipboard with the petition form.
Starr taught special education for years in Hawthorn District 73 (Vernon Hills) and saw first hand the negative effects of masking on students.
“There are so many reasons that children cannot learn with masks on. They can’t see faces can’t see their papers. There’s a myriad,” Starr said. “And (masks) don’t work. It’s like stopping a mosquito with a chain link fence.”
When Starr refused to get the vaccine, she was removed from her job at a Waukegan school district (“it’s the state putting that mandate on me”). She attends regular meetings with a local group to discuss the state’s problems and share ideas on how to fix them.
Starr said the challenge comes with name recognition with oppositional candidates to Pritzker.
“I think you just have to wake people up to the alternatives. I look at the economics and politics, the dirty democratic politics, the fact Madigan just got indicted, that’s a big deal,” Starr said. “I think most of Illinois is awake, we are just dealing with the North Shore and Chicago.”
Not far from Starr, a Mundelein parent stood by and listened patiently to Bailey’s speech.
The mother of two girls in the area’s high school (District 120) and middle school (D73) districts, Margie Grandt recalled how one of her daughters “would come home with headaches every day. I would call up the doctor and ask ‘can you help us get out of these mandates?’ The doctors weren’t willing to do that anyway.
“You see the mental illness that these kids struggle with not seeing the faces of their peers. The little ones are behind on their learning.”
Grandt said she is part of a joinder lawsuit waiting to be heard by Judge Grischow. Her frustration is not only with Pritzker and the mandates, but the school boards in Districts 120 and 73.
For months, she attempted to get answers as to why the school board voted to forcibly mask students, and stuck to masking after Grischow’s Feb. 4 TRO ruling. She saw other parents raising funds to sue their districts, so she finally did the same.
“The schools have made these decisions without listening to the parents. No one is listening to us,” Grandt said. “So it came down to, ‘what are we going to do?’”
During his speech, Bailey addressed other issues on his platform; about eliminating the gas tax, shrinking wasteful government spending and programs and creating jobs to attract residents to Illinois.
For a good half hour after his speech, Bailey took questions and chatted up the room. He talked to moms and dads and business owners, educators and essential workers.
He heard a lot of the same concerns, the same frustrations and anxieties, how it was too easy for Pritzker to take so much away. Where was the bi-partisan resistance from the state legislature?
“I’ve been standing with you for your freedoms since the very beginning. I will continue to stand with you and fight against these government mandates and for your individual liberties,” Bailey said to the group.
Away from the audience, privately, when I pressed him on the legal defeats handed to the governor, Bailey’s comments were more assertive, if not specific, about how we don’t yet know the full scope of Pritzker’s actions the past two years.
“Much more people were adversely affected by this than we are being told and we are witnessing this all over the state,” Bailey said.
That’s the type of forceful messaging – this guy Pritzker hurt people and their kids – potential voters need to hear. Gubernatorial candidates would be wise to track DeVore, who brings up Pritzker’s horrendous legal record on Covid mitigations any chance he gets.
After the speech and meet-and-greet, Bailey’s bus pulled away towards the next stop. The Mundelein mother of two said she was happy she came to the event, inspired by the message of grassroots change.
“I heard hope,” Grandt said. “Hope that we can make a change and as Illinoisans who want to stay in Illinois, we can fight for our change.”
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