There has been one person in the state legislature that has received more ink than just about any person in state government and one person that has received more attention than any single issue facing Illinois residents during this difficult and conflicted time.
Yes, this person is State Rep. Darren Bailey, the likely next state senator for the 55th district in Illinois,.
He’s got more ink than the special session has bills.
Am I correct?
DPI, that is the Democratic Party of Illinois, could be mobilizing a petition drive; they are not.
County parties and interested individuals are doing this work instead. Would have been far easier during the primary.
DPI could be mobilizing a fundraising drive based on this highly predictable behavior; they are not.
How is it that Republicans can roll into a fundraising extravaganza nearly the next day after someone does something embarrassing?
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DPI could unload the double standard canisters; they do not.
It’s not like there aren’t countless videos online, statements made on social media and in the press, as well as votes made during the short time he has been in office to expose him for what he is.
Hmmm.
Maybe, they figured they might have underestimated his ability to mobilize groups of politically, economically and informationally isolated folks across the State of Illinois.
I doubt that’s the isasue.
He flaunts disrespect of others, of rules, of authority. Demands total respect by everyone else for his position.
It is not stunning that more folks would join him in these behaviors.
He’s done this for years. Most of the new brand of Illinois Republicans are all in the same vein.
Without any real Democratic voices, consistent messages and messengers for decades, Central and Southern Illinois have cross-pollinated their Republican strains into what we see today.
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Darren Bailey is just one distillation from this destructive process only made possible by the vacuum created by the Democratic Party.
Democrats applauded retiring state senator Dale Righter’s rebuke of his likely successor, not realizing that this letter was obvious evidence of how out of touch Righter had become with the Republican electorate.
Likely, Righter felt or was forced to retire after overriding a Rauner veto, just like his colleague former state rep. Reggie Phillips appeared to do so two years prior.
And, who replaced Reggie in the 110th?
It wasn’t the small business owner with answers to questions at debates.
No, it was the Oakland farmer, Chris Miller, whose wife from Oak Park and Naperville, is poised to walk into the open seat from retiring 25-year incumbent U.S. Rep. John Shimkus. And, she will do so without much of a fight from the Democratic Party, either.
It’s not like Bailey and the Millers are unknown quantities. The threats they pose to American tradition and to the respect of all of our rights and all of our people are very real.
Yet, the Democratic Party did not manage to get someone on the primary ballot to challenge the open seat left by a retiring state senator.
That’s not just a failure in strategy, even as citizens band together to muster the signatures necessary on petitions to get a candidate on the ballot.
That is what we call a failure in believing.
This failure in believing is that the 15th District and any and all of our people are worthy of having someone and any political party fight for and with them by their side.
The Democratic Party of Illinois just is not with us.
Now, the Republican Party isn’t either.
Republicans have had decades to muster some form of economic, education, and healthcare policy to benefit rural residents.
They completely failed.
They completely abandoned any sense of responsibility and accountability for their own failures. It is easy to point fingers in a binary system.
Voters completely abandoned any sense of holding these elected officials accountable.
How could they when there was no one consistently on the other side of any issue raising the debate, sharpening the ideas, and making the policy and the legislation better for our rural communities?
If any candidate was on the ballot, would local media even have the resources or will to cover a challenger responsibly?
Finally, as the legislature and many Democrats applaud kicking out a proclaimed hater of taxpayer bailouts, subsidies and tax-breaks . . . someone who receives all of the above in numbers that tick into the millions . . .
What has gone missing are the countless citizens of Illinois that have less food on the table . . . less money to spend on that food . . . because prices at the stores have been increasing throughout the pandemic . . . and the U.S. Congress will not take up increasing food stamps because Republicans cannot cross punishing people that are hungry and out of work.
What has gone missing are the countless workers of Illinois that have less ability to find new work . . . less comfort in the job they do have . . . and more concern for the future of their families.
What has gone missing is any hint of a strategy by either political party to build change in America for her people and her workers. #DemandBetter
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(Photo: CNN.com)
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