[MUSIC] >> Welcome to Capitol View on WSIU.

I'm Brian Sapp.

On Tuesday, Governor JB Pritzker and Darren Bailey appeared together for their only debate in this year's election for governor.

The candidates covered a wide variety of issues.

We'll see if the candidates broke any new ground.

And with less than three weeks left until Election Day, the strength of the two parties.

Major parties here in the state is showing its impact, or lack thereof, in this year's campaign.

We'll talk about these topics today with our guests.

Joining us is John Jackson.

He's the visiting professor for the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute.

And new to our guest rotation is Patrick Pfingsten.

He writes the Illinois Political newsletter and hosts afternoons on May in Springfield.

Patrick.

Welcome, John.

Welcome.

>> Thank you.

>> Glad to be with you.

>> We'll start with the debate.

WTTW in Chicago hosted the one and only debate forum, um, on Tuesday.

It aired last night here on the SIU stations.

Uh, they covered topics impacting the whole state, Chicago centric.

They even included questions from Mark.

Welp at WTVP in Peoria and several questions from myself here at WSIU.

Um, as I said, this is the only time that the two men will meet for an event like this.

Bailey has a tall challenge in front of him, taking on a strong incumbent like Governor Pritzker.

Patrick, what were you looking for?

You were there at the debate last night.

What were you looking for heading into this?

And what did you see?

>> Well, it certainly happened.

I guess there's that, uh, you know, certainly you would think the governor went in hoping to planning to expecting to just play error free ball.

Uh, if, if the, the public poll that came out last week is, is remotely close.

He's He's not in bad shape.

Uh, he's out spending Bailey about a gazillion to one right now.

Uh, and and and, and there was no real situation in which he was going to lose the race unless he did something abundantly terrible in that debate.

So he was he was he was trying to to play strong, play to the facts, uh, you know, admonish Bailey when Bailey interrupted because Bailey was trying to get a, a punch in here and there and everywhere, and it got snippy.

It got a little confrontational.

It got a little condescending at times, uh, which is kind of par for the course with these two who don't like each other very much.

It was it was not the best executed debate I've ever seen before.

Uh, I mean, Bailey seemed as if he hadn't even prepared.

Uh, Pritzker got away with some mistruths and some obfuscations.

And and and we spent a lot of time on federal issues in a gubernatorial debate, which made me want to bang my head against the table.

So it kind of felt like we set democracy back at least 20 minutes.

>> Um, as I was listening and watching, I was kind of the feel that I got, you know, Mr.

or Mr., uh, Pritzker just kind of tried to play to his strength.

He tried to, he could really hear it.

I was only able to listen.

You could really hear him try to hold back and have that air of gravitas.

Mr.

Bailey piped in a couple of times.

And.

Yeah, you heard that correction.

Was there any moments that Bailey, you felt like he was able to score points?

I mean, for lack of a better word.

>> Not nearly as well as he could have.

Right.

I mean, there there were obvious opportunities to to, to smack Pritzker on cost of living.

Right.

It's more expensive to live in Illinois than it is in our neighbors.

There were there were ways to to smack Pritzker around on on school performance on on crime, etc.

and he just missed those opportunities time and time again.

It was a really poorly executed debate by Bailey.

I think there are some people that will tell you he he got a few digs in, but I think if you if anybody actually watches it and comes away with with any memory of what Darren Bailey said, it was trying to make any time, Pritzker said Donald Trump's name into a drinking game.

Uh, and I think Bailey's a teetotaler, too.

So it didn't make any sense anyway.

So it was just it was just a I walked out of there the other night and just thought, oh my gosh, I just wasted how many hours of my life on this because we did not really break a lot of new ground.

>> Um, and with that being said, one, one last thing on the overall, uh, Mr.

Bailey or Pritzker was asked several times about his national ambitions.

He kind of seemed to sidestep that.

Did you, did you get a read or a feel being there and where where he does stand on this.

>> I mean, it he he has pretty much the standard answer every time he's asked.

And, you know, I did a sit down with him earlier this year where I kind of tried to get at him from a different angle on it and he still evaded it.

Um, look, everything he's doing is laying the groundwork to mount a presidential campaign next year.

Every everything he does should be looked at through the lens of someone planning to run for president and, and should be should be seen as, uh, that's what's happening sometime in 2027.

Uh, even if he doesn't want to admit it, everybody can see with our own two eyeballs what's happening in front of us.

So, so we, we know that that that's what he's planning next year, as long as he wins as expected in November.

>> Yes.

And as you know, the emails that I get here as a reporter, and I see that he was in South Carolina at an NAACP event.

Yeah, he's laying the groundwork for something, or at least trying to expand his impact throughout the nation.

Let's dive in.

I want to dive in on a couple of topics.

Um, because people will be able to watch, go back and watch on TV if they didn't see it last night on their YouTube page.

Affordability issues, the state budget.

That's a lot of the things, as you know, for Capital View we've talked about here where, um, what did Mr.

Pritzker sell as his, you know, point to elect him again for office when it comes to our budget and spending here in the state?

>> You know, it was really.

>> Interesting because he, he defended but but also avoided the question on state spending.

Uh, you know, we're up to almost $60 billion in the general revenue Fund, up from around 39 in Pritzker's first budget.

And in 2019, at a time when when our personal budgets aren't keeping up with that or our our wages aren't keeping up with that.

And it was it was an awkward position for, for him to say, well, well, state spending is, is up less than the rate of inflation.

Well, inflation was also through the roof halfway through through his term, and he got a ton of federal dollars through through Covid as part of that.

It's it's not really, you know, I mean, they point to the credit upgrades and, and that sort of thing, but that doesn't impact somebody's energy bill that doesn't impact somebody's property tax bill.

And there continue to be not only no answers, but also defenses, right.

When we've seen, uh, play a role, the Climate and Equity Jobs Act, the, the, the bill, the law that, that essentially shuts down natural gas power plants throughout the state, specifically down in, in the southern half of the state.

They, they just they defended and blame someone else for high energy prices.

When.

When property taxes are through the roof, they blame local school districts instead of a property tax code that he's had eight years to defend.

When when gas prices are through the roof thanks to the war in Iran, they're higher here than they are in Kentucky or Missouri or any in Indiana, because we're putting $0.50 a gallon in in taxes on top of a gallon of gasoline and a 6.25% sales tax.

On top of all of that, it's higher.

It's more expensive to live here than it is in our neighboring states.

And and the governor tries to paint this rosy picture of of Illinois back on track when when it is it is hard to live here.

And I thought Bailey did a really poor job of, of trying to exploit some of those failures of, of Pritzker's time in office.

And, and Pritzker, I thought, did a really poor job of, of trying to connect with voters and say, I understand that it's hard out there because he would do.

He would do so much better with voters if he if he were to be a little bit just a little bit more relatable.

And and he's he's really not.

And I don't know if it's just he's not capable of it or, or, or he doesn't want to be.

There's never been an I feel your pain.

Remember the Bill Clinton I feel your pain moment.

Right.

There's never been that from him.

There's never been an I understand that it's expensive to live here right now.

It's just it's Donald Trump fault.

It's Donald Trump's fault.

So screw that guy.

Right.

And, and, and there needs to be a little bit of, of taking responsibility for what's happening at home.

>> Yeah, we're we all live together here in the state.

And it's not, you know, I think that, you know, Governor Pritzker points back to what he was handed from Mr.

Rauner.

There's so many ways that I think there are impacts.

And how could he make that connection?

One last topic I want to spend about maybe three minutes on this.

I was able to ask a question about evidence based funding education spending.

Um, the Carbondale High School and elementary schools are the farthest away in the state when it comes to adequacy.

I was interested by Mr.

Bailey's response where he said he wasn't quite clear, but maybe we don't need to be spending more money on schools.

I know that there's a point where they bring up that, well, if we're not seeing an increase in outcomes.

What did you take on?

Mr.

Bailey's thought on what we could do with evidence based funding.

And then, you know what the governor said?

>> Well, I mean, not to pick on Bailey, but it was pretty clear that he doesn't have a plan.

Right.

He he he talks about struggling schools that that that, you know, outcomes, that adequacy, that reading levels aren't where we want them to be.

And that's all true.

And, and, you know, the governor again, should own that and doesn't.

Uh, but but what's Bailey's plan?

Right on.

On school funding.

His property tax plan is a 1% cap, which would take millions, tens of millions of dollars out of schools in the out years.

He has no plan to reform the property tax system.

The governor has no plan to reform the property tax system.

And remember, about half of your property tax bill goes to your local school.

And and and instead, he's just blaming school districts for not lowering property taxes because they're giving a little bit more in the scheme of things through through evidence based funding, about 300 million a year more, which is even below what they're expected to do, uh, under the F law.

And we're just seeing that schools are not performing.

And the Democratic answer is throw money at it.

The Republican answer is pretend that there's no problem or just point out the problem and pretend there's no solution.

And in the meantime, you know anyone who's met a kid coming out of school, they can't read, they can't write.

It's it's a we see kids with college degrees that can't write a complete sentence.

I don't know if that's cell phones that are the problem or what, but it's a a real issue in professional settings.

And schools are not are not performing adequately.

And, and the problem is the hard truth is to, to move away from the property tax based funding system that we have for schools in this state is going to require a gigantic funding shift, billions of dollars to move away from property taxes.

And if you want to defund schools more through the General Revenue Fund, which either means gigantic cuts to programs which the progressives in the legislature are never going to do, or it means new revenue sources.

And you've already seen the the progressive tax, the the graduated income tax fail in 2020.

They couldn't find the support to put the millionaire surcharge on the ballot this year.

Uh, obviously there there there's not going to be a general tax rate increase at this point.

So so there's no real plan or option to, to do more funding today.

Maybe there will be, uh, down the road, but it's, it funding schools is a, a big problem with no easy answer.

And it was clear that neither candidate is really prepared to tackle the issue.

>> I think you're that's why you bring you on here.

I appreciate that, and there's so many variables that I think I'm not sure a five minute answer from either of the candidates and can can get that answered.

I want to move on from that.

We're going to bring in John, um, and talk maybe broaden out a little bit just about the campaign.

John.

It's that time of year.

Our ad, our TV gets filled with ads.

I watch a lot of YouTube videos for news and other things like that.

I'm starting to see some, particularly just Governor Pritzker ads.

What are you seeing when it comes to ads?

And, you know, how is it similar or different from what we've seen in the past?

>> Well, I think the ads do tell a story, and it's a story playing out statewide and nationally.

Uh, and the story is, especially in the Governor Pritzker ads, we've had ads for about a month, maybe five weeks.

We've had a lot of Pritzker ads, and they're well produced and they change often.

I bet I've seen eight new ads and they take two tacks.

One is a direct attack on Bayley, and the summary of all of that is that he's too extreme for Illinois.

But the second one is, uh, Pritzker making his positive role.

And he does talk about his Accomplishments, especially in the budgeting area.

But he also has this testimonial where he goes out with ordinary people and they go back and forth.

So those are the positive ads there, really not other ads.

Bailey doesn't have any ads because Richard Uihlein decided not to fund his campaign like he did last time.

So we've talked about that.

He's not up, but the one that's up.

And in lots of rotations, it's the same ad over and over again is a very negative ad out of the candidate for the U.S.

Senate, and that's against the lieutenant governor.

And there, Don Tracy ads.

It's one ad and it's very dark.

It's foreboding, mostly stark black and white coloring.

The picture of Stratton is particularly harsh and unflattering of her.

And the theme is A vote for her is a vote for socialism or even communism.

And it goes over and over again.

It's very dark and very nasty, and it's been repeating all over the nation.

Take out her name and what she's running for, particularly in those Senate races.

And you can just insert your local Republican candidate for the Senate and sometimes the governor and elect him or her to the Senate.

You go and get communism.

You're going to get socialism, you're going to get this guy from Michigan.

And, you know, it's going to be Trump's story, that they're all a bunch of communists and socialists, and it's all very negativism.

It goes back to the McCarthyism of the 1950s, at least, if not before.

And it was the whole Red scare.

We're back in our Red scare era now, and on the Republican or Democratic side, the candidates are going to say this is a referendum on Donald Trump.

I don't care what else your positions are.

And it really is a referendum on Donald Trump.

And you get that over and over.

And it doesn't matter.

The state doesn't matter.

It's Senate or governor.

That's what the Democrats are selling.

We'll see fairly soon whose ads are selling the best.

>> When you look at the governor's ads, when they have gone at Bailey, they've gone to his more extreme views or looking at his Maga tie, so to speak.

And it was interesting.

The governor released a series of ads that they targeted, I think, around the state, you know, and when I saw that they were shared and those were, you know, I don't know, morning in America is what popped into my head, but just those very positive.

Patrick, what are you seeing?

Are any of the ads having an impact or is it just Governor Pritzker preaching to the choir?

And will this lack of ads on Mr.

Bailey's part?

I mean, is it going to have.

>> The death knell of.

That's the death knell of Bailey's campaign, right, is that he's he's spending almost nothing on on Google zero on on on YouTube, zero on Facebook, zero on TV.

Right.

You can't win a statewide election without being on the air.

I mean, Pritzker just last week, if I if I had this right, and it was kind of putting it together in the back of a napkin, spent about 300,000 bucks on YouTube alone and Bailey spent zero.

It's it's, it's just not even in the.

And we're talking millions on television across the state.

Uh, it's it's interesting that John talks about the US Senate race because Stratton just put her first ad of the campaign out this week.

Uh, she's kind of been underground most of the most of the summer.

I hadn't seen her since the State Fair until I sat down with her this week at her campaign office in Chicago.

And, and, you know, she, she essentially, you know, played it off, but it was it was a you can't you can't lose the race if you're not if you're not saying things that that get you get you in trouble.

And you know, she is easily.

Stratton is easily the most progressive U.S.

Senate candidate we've ever seen in this state.

Uh, I mean, there's a tradition of relative even if they're, you know, even even the Democrats are relatively center left.

I mean, Durbin and, and, and others have have been, you know, aren't, aren't fire breathing progressives at least weren't elected as fire breathing progressives 30 years ago.

And, and it's going to be interesting to see, you know, I, I don't know that.

And John, I'd be interested to see that that Tracey ad if that's on cable down there or if that's if that's on digital, because I haven't seen any of any of Tracey on TV yet.

I, I've seen the digital ads come out, but it's, you know, he's, he's been outspending Stratton.

It's small to zero over the last few weeks.

Uh, that that new poll that came out last week had a 13 point race.

So it's still not particularly close.

That might just be the environment more than anything.

But, uh, it was interesting because I, I went through the list of some of the Democrat socialist issues with Stratton, uh, when I sat down with her this week and she's like, yeah, I don't support that stuff.

So, so she's certainly progressive, but she's not like, let's abolish the US Senate.

Right?

It's she's not, she's not there.

I should probably mention that the attorney general, Kwame Raoul, just went up on TV this week, uh, state legislative candidate south of of of I 70 or, or not on the air.

I think you'll probably see, uh, Kevin Schmidt over in the Metro East go up at least on cable at some point soon.

Uh, I think, um, nothing in congressional races and, and, and yeah, it's, it's just, it's, it's, it's been interesting to see where the spending is.

who has it.

Obviously, Democrats are are vastly outspending Republicans across the state and legislative races.

And and I mean, the congressional races are all quiet thanks to gerrymandering.

But but yeah, Pritzker has has just has just snowed Bailey under in in his messaging.

And there's just at this point, there's, there's no way for Bailey to make that up.

>> Yeah, it's it's quite a large margin.

Um, we have about five minutes left.

Last topic I wanted to cover kind of by extension that, as I said in the tease, the intro, the strength or the lack thereof of the parties in the our state here.

I think it's noticeable in the Chicago Tribune.

I've noticed in my email feeds, like they've come out with their endorsements.

You talked about this, John.

You wanted to kind of promote this.

What did you notice in these endorsements that have come out from the Tribune?

>> Well, to start with this Chicago Tribune since the 1880s, it's been the voice of Midwestern reason and Midwestern conservatism, which usually meant establishment Republicans.

So that's the dominant newspaper in the state, I take it, every day.

See, Tribune and I have read all their endorsements except in the governor's case, and I don't think they've endorsed, but I fully expect it to be Pritzker.

>> They won't they won't endorse him.

That's a corporate edict from from their hedge fund owners that they cannot endorse in the the governor and U.S.

Senate race.

So they were scheduled this week to do endorsement or editorial board interviews with the candidates for governor.

Pritzker said no.

And Bailey and the independent Corbett were scheduled to sit down with them this week.

Okay.

But they're not going to do an endorsement.

>> Okay.

Well, good to know.

They've gone through all the, uh, the constitutional office Officers and everyone they've endorsed is the Democrat.

And the reasoning has been pretty straightforward in every one of them.

That is, we may disagree on policy issues sometimes, and they then stretch out where they disagree.

But in every case they've said and all of them are incumbents, but one which is comptroller.

They've said this person's done a good job.

Person's a serious holder of this office, and we've got no quarrel with the way they've performed or very little quarrel.

And I think that's interesting that that's the way that's worked out.

And they've pointed out repeatedly that whoever the Republican challenger is is often a kind of a perennial candidate, a gadfly.

People that have run before and lost for much lesser offices.

And so the Tribune's been pretty, I think, pretty straightforward and pretty consistent.

I think this is a metaphor for the Republicans in other places, though, and that is when you are the minority party, you have a very difficult time recruiting good candidates, and that's what they're going through.

Their bench strength is pretty bad.

And it reminds me of the Southland, where I grew up, my native Arkansas, back when I grew up in the South, the Republicans didn't amount to anything.

I mean, they had a hard time recruiting any serious candidates.

And so you would get the Democrats dominating in the South.

And now it's totally shifted the other way.

And so I think that's what's going on in the blue states where the Republicans have a hard time.

But keep in mind, in the red states, the Democrats have a really hard time ever making a comeback, although we will see there are a lot of combat comeback possibilities on, what, 19 days from now?

Because there are ten Senate races very much up in the air and ten Senate races, many of which are in red states like Texas, is absolutely unheard of.

That's amazing that there are that many and that there are that many red states involved.

So am I predicting a blue wave?

No.

I think any of those ten could go the wrong way for the Democrats.

But nevertheless, we are going to have a barn burner of a late night, getting all those in and seeing what's going to happen in the Senate and in the House.

It's going to be very, very important.

Is Donald Duck Donald Trump going to be a lame duck for two years, or is he going to be reinvigorated and have all kinds of bragging rights?

And let me tell you, he'll brag about anything he gets a chance to.

>> I'll just say really quickly.

>> Brian, that that the the Trib's editorials, the endorsements on the statewide and congressional races, I think we're more an indictment of the unseriousness of Republicans and the fact that those.

The only one that surprised me, I think, was the comptroller's race, where they referred to Margaret Crook as a moderate Democrat, which she's anything but that.

If you go through the legislative races, a lot of times they're they're endorsing Republicans just because they're a check on the Democrats.

And that's I think that's maybe more of what you see in the scheme of things.

>> All right.

Great input there, Patrick.

It was nice having you on the show.

John, thank you for joining us.

Thank you.

Thank you for joining us.

[MUSIC]