Rauner v. Madigan in Illinois

Long haul struggle, singed-politicos, ammo ready, Chi Trib tells us.

“. . . the gov­er­nor … made it clear that he is ready to dig in for the long haul, that he is not go­ing to be . . . forced into some short-term so­lu­tion that is not good for the state in the long run. That was made clear,” Se­nate Repub­li­can leader Chris­tine Radogno of Le­mont said of the cur­rent grid­lock.

Get ready, says another Republican, referring to the Rauner strategy.

“If you are in the leg­is­la­ture and you’re on the wrong side and don’t have a thick skin, pre­pare to get singed, burnt and blown up,” said one Repub­li­can sen­a­tor not au­tho­rized to speak pub­licly about the closed-door meet­ings with Rauner. “He is lin­ing up all the am­mu­ni­tion and is ready to go.”

From Madigan, referring to Rauner:

 “If peo­ple are op­er­at­ing in the ex­treme, . . .  he’s on the ex­treme, . . . op­er­at­ing in the ex­treme,”

From Rauner:

Rauner’s of­fice is­sued two news re­leases blast­ing Madi­gan as “un­will­ing” to com­pro­mise.

Neutral observer:

In­side the bub­ble of the State­house amid hard­en­ing po­si­tions, “each side thinks it’s right and each side thinks they have pub­lic opin­ion with them,” said one vet­eran lob­by­ist who did not want to be iden­ti­fied pub­licly to avoid risk­ing jeop­ar­diz­ing re­la­tion­ships.

Republicans say:

Repub­li­cans point to a June 30 dead­line for the Chicago Public Schools to make a sched­uled $634 mil­lion pay­ment to the Chicago Teach­ers’ Pen­sion Fund as a pres­sure point for Democrats to ne­go­ti­ate.

Also:

Another pres­sure point: Democrats are ex­pected to hold onto the bills ad­vanc­ing their bud­get plan rather than quickly for­ward them to a gov­er­nor who has pledged to veto them.

The AFSCME matter:

[T]he Rauner ad­min­is­tra­tion is ne­go­ti­at­ing a new col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing agree­ment for July 1 with the state’s largest pub­lic union, the Amer­i­can Fed­er­a­tion of State, County and Mu­nic­i­pal Em­ploy­ees. Ne­go­ti­a­tions have not made much progress so far, and AF­SCME con­tends Rauner is at­tempt­ing to ad­vance sev­eral of his points to weaken pub­lic em­ployee unions [using this bargaining].

Reason for thinking so:

Back in March 2013, in the early days of his GOP pri­mary cam­paign for gov­er­nor, Rauner said he might “take a strike and shut the gov­ern­ment down for a few weeks” and said he knew of few politi­cians who would be will­ing to do that. “I won’t be happy do­ing it, but I will do it proudly be­cause it’s the right thing to do.”

 He used such fighting words in a River Forest rally Nov. of  2013.

Illinois is “in deep trouble,” Republican candidate for governor Bruce Rauner told a River Forest cafe audience Thursday night . . . 

Go after government unions, for one thing, whose “bosses bribe politicians.” . . . .  Unions have “bought [even] a number of Republicans.” To the unions Rauner would say, “You can’t bribe me.” He would limit collective bargaining rights if need be, as Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker did. It’s “a key part” of his platform.

Dems fight with no-strike legislation, the Trib story continues:

Democrats sup­port­ive of AF­SCME sent the gov­er­nor leg­is­la­tion cre­at­ing the op­tion of ar­bi­tra­tion which, if cho­sen, would pre­vent a strike or lock­out of pub­lic work­ers in the event con­tract talks stall. But there is lit­tle doubt that Rauner would veto such a mea­sure.

Leading to an overtime session, before which 

rank-and-file law­mak­ers [will have] an op­por­tu­nity to gauge the po­lit­i­cal winds in their home dis­tricts and what, if any, pub­lic im­pact ex­ists over the cur­rent ran­cor as well as who is to blame.

Enter lotsa Rauner money, the life blood of political warfare

That’s where the Rauner TV ad cam­paign comes in, though there are ques­tions about its ef­fec­tive­ness in sum­mer, when many view­ers are fo­cused on the out­doors rather than tele­vi­sions show­ing po­lit­i­cal ad­ver­tis­ing.

Summertime, when the livin' is easy and watch political fight ads on TV? 

The beach and al fresco coffee in the morning, or glued to tube to hear the latest? 

Hint: Don't rule out the one-eyed monster, or the virtually subliminal effect of quickies during the evening news. In any case, stay tuned . . .