(uplifting music) (camera clicks and beeps) (riveting music) - Welcome to "Capitol View," your weekly look at the happenings inside and outside the Illinois State Capitol.

I'm your host, Jennifer Fuller.

Joining us this week are John O'Connor of the Associated Press and Jeremy Gorner from the "Chicago Tribune."

Gentlemen, thanks for joining us.

- Thanks, Jen.

- We've got a lot to get to this week, but we'll start with hopefully what lots of people have already seen and been talking about, but I'm hoping to get some analysis from each of you on the debate between Governor JB Pritzker and State Senator Darren Bailey.

Jeremy, I'll start with you.

This was the second of two televised debates between the two men in the major party candidates for Illinois governor.

Any takeaways here that you think voters may not have already been aware of?

- It didn't really seem like it moved the ball too much from the first debate.

I mean, it began with Darren Bailey had a couple of new quips that he's added in his criticism of Governor Pritzker.

Instead of dubbing Chicago a hell hole and the OK Corral, he now called it Pritzkerville, which was a term that, in the spin room, Pritzker actually ended up embracing.

But at the same time, you know, there was a lot of bickering interruption, really from Senator Bailey's side this time.

It was almost as if we're watching the first debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden in the 2020 election.

But, you know, it was a lot of the usual talking points from each side, you know, Governor Pritzker dubbing Bailey as an extremist for his support of Trump, just Bailey talking about, you know, accusing Pritzker of massive failures under his leadership, of course, going after him, you know, with, you know, the way that he's handled DCFS and, of course, the governor having to defend himself, you know, for retaining Mark Smith as his director, despite all the contempt findings.

You know, these are all issues that Bailey has rehashed before, and, of course, he was pressed on, you know, with some of these issues about how he would actually change things, which he really didn't come up with a clear vision on how he would do that, especially with respect to DCFS.

You know, and then, of course, Bailey, you know, slammed Pritzker for the crime problem, once again bringing up bunching Pritzker with Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx.

So it really didn't move the ball too much from the first debate, and again, it was a lot of the same talking points that we've seen on the campaign trail from both candidates.

- John, Jeremy brings up some good points.

There were a lot of questions, a lot of issues covered, but the analysis that we've seen, not a lot of specifics from either candidate on things that they would change or things that they would retain if they're the winner in November.

- No, you're right.

Governor Pritzker, the Democrat, I thought he got a good zing in on the DCFS question.

The director's been held in contempt of court 13 times because they're not able to place the children in the foster environments that they need to be in or required to be in.

And Pritzker pointed out to the audience, to Bailey that he didn't have a concrete plan.

Bailey talked about hiring good people, and on November 9th, he's gonna be accepting resumes from the best and the brightest, and that's great.

On the other hand, it occurred to me that Bailey has attacked, as Jeremy noted, repeatedly attacked Pritzker on crime, and Pritzker's answer is always that, "I've invested millions of dollars in new state police cadets in labs to analyze DNA samples to solve crimes," but he doesn't have an answer as to why other than blaming COVID.

He said crime increased nationwide because of COVID, but he has no explanation for, okay, you've invested all this money.

What is it doing and what are you going to do, you know, going forward to reduce the crime?

- I wanna stick with you a little bit.

We talked with the SIU debate professor Todd Graham.

Perhaps you all are familiar with him.

But in his analysis, he mentioned that voters need to hold their political candidates more accountable and demand more debates.

"Two," he says, "is not enough between the two major party candidates for governor."

Presidential debates need to be more.

Statewide, candidates need to be seen in forums like this more often and asked questions that the people are asking about.

John, do you think that this is some evolution?

Are we starting to seek candidates who will say, "I'm going to skip debates altogether and let the voters decide based on my campaign message alone"?

- You've always had that, I think.

There's a tendency to do that except at the highest levels.

And I think you'll continuously that unless, you know, there's no way.

I don't know of a way to force a candidate to engage in a debate.

The opponent can make some hay out of that, that he's, you know, that he or she, "my opponent is too afraid to stand up and talk about it."

In the Bush-Dukakis and maybe in the Bush-Clinton debates, I think was the first time we saw a series of debates, each one focused on separate issues.

Like this debate is about the economy.

This debate is about military spending.

I was a very young child, maybe three or four at the time.

I remember though that it seemed to move the ball, as we've been saying today, that when you have 90 minutes or an hour at least to focus on one issue and the candidates can still sway, that's one thing.

I mean, the candidates that we saw Tuesday night, more so than three, two weeks ago, they weren't even answering the question that was put to them, you know, and they weren't forced to answer questions.

For example, Governor Pritzker was asked to give a grade to Mayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago and the Cook County state's attorney Kim Foxx on their crime, and he said, "Oh, I don't like to give letter grades."

And I think the follow up should've been, "We're asking you to give one now," you know?

But I think maybe, you know, sure, more debates, you know, more engagement would be helpful.

You know, maybe the public would tire after two or three, and debates, you know, I spoke to our graduate students who go through the University of Illinois at Springfield before the first debate because they were going to cover that and write stories on "Deadline" about it.

The one message I tried to give them was debates are, "You're not gonna cover a whole campaign in one debate."

Debates are about how they think on their feet, how they respond, how they appear.

You know, does this man or woman appear presidential or gubernatorial, someone you can trust?

So to that extent, it would be helpful, and I there's where Bailey, you know, Bailey, I thought in the first debate was stronger, more sure, came off as very sincere politician who just thought that the current leadership is wrong.

It felt like the lack that Jeremy mentioned, the lack of sound remedies for some of the problems, you know, you can only talk about, "I'm gonna make a change" so many times, you know.

When asked how he would bring down or when he renamed Chicago Pritzkerville rather than hell hole, he was asking about, "Do you still consider it a hell hole, and what's your message to Chicago?"

And he said, "Help is on the way."

Okay, that's a great.

That sounds reassuring, but we need specifics.

- Jeremy, we should note, too, that there is another debate scheduled for next week between the two major party candidates for US Senate in Illinois.

That would be the incumbent Democrat, Tammy Duckworth, the Republican challenger, Kathy Salvi.

Is that race not getting attention because it's a foregone conclusion, or is it just that the governor's race is taking up so much time, we're not seeing as much from the other statewides?

- I think it's a little bit of both, Jen.

First of all, kind of to address John's point, one of the things that struck me first off about the Pritzker-Bailey debate, I think just the nature of that format where they have 30 seconds and 60 seconds to respond.

It's just like John was saying, you know, you really can't learn a lot about candidates from one debate just by the very nature of that format.

They're giving what amounts to be an elevator speech, and that can be very difficult.

Of course, the use that there is to see how these people, how these candidates think on their feet, but just from an educational standpoint to know where they stand on issues, that could be difficult just by, I guess it really depends on the nature of the debate.

You know, we talk about that a little more, but that race, Pritzker Bailey has been such, you know, I think because of the Trump factor with Bailey, it's gotten so much attention and there's been so much mudslinging on both sides that I think it's probably overshadowed other races like Salvi and Duckworth because like, let's look at Tammy Duckworth.

Tammy Duckworth's very popular.

You know, her name has been floated as a vice presidential candidate.

She's very highly regarded in the Senate.

She's a war veteran.

I mean, she's got the experience, and Kathy Salvi, I mean, doesn't.

I mean, her husband, of course, was in politics, ran for US Senate, was in the state legislature a long time ago, I mean, but at the same time, you know, she has an inherent disadvantage of being a Republican in a blue state.

I mean, polling isn't perfect, but there's some polling out there suggesting that the Democrats are way ahead in pretty much every race.

Now, is that gonna come to fruition during the election?

That remains to be seen.

But I mean, if you listen to some of the debates that have already gone on between Salvi and Duckworth, Duckworth is pretty dead to rites, sticking to issues like abortion, which, you know, of course, being from suburban Cook County, that is an issue that is very important to suburban women, you know, who are pro-choice.

But Kathy Salvi, on the other hand, too, has really stuck to traditional Republican talking points decrying Joe Biden's agenda, and she's actually on the abortion issue, and this is all in the context, of course, of the overturning of Roe V Wade.

She's been pretty evasive on some of her, you know, on her position about abortion.

I mean, very clearly, you could tell that she's pro-life, but in terms of like, you know, what she would do if she becomes you know, a senator, she's been largely evasive on that on the campaign trail.

But aside from that, yeah, I think that the fact that there's so much attention to this governor's race, you know, and just the fact that, you know, Tammy Duckworth, I mean, you know, Kathy Salvi hasn't, you know, she's going against somebody who is very popular in the US Senate, especially among Democrats where, you know, that 50-50 split could be altered one way or the other anytime.

She's never seemed like a senator whose seat is vulnerable, you know what I mean?

Especially from somebody who is an outsider who really has, for the most part, just kind of hasn't talked too much about what she'd like to do other than, you know, just basically reiterating all the national Republican talking points, you know, against Democrats, of course, calling Tammy Duckworth a rubber stamp to the Biden agenda.

So it hasn't been as contested of a race as we're seeing with like some of these other races we're paying attention to, like the governor's race but also with some of these races for like state Supreme Court, for example, so yeah.

- Sure.

Control of the message many times, if not every time, comes down to money, and Jeremy, you had some reporting this week about new money for the Bailey campaign from Richard Uihlein.

Is it going to be enough, though?

There was analysis out earlier in the week that I think Governor Pritzker had raised and spent something to the tune of 23 to one the amount of money that was raised and spent in this campaign.

Is there any way Bailey can catch up in terms of getting his message out there?

- I mean, catching up to Governor Pritzker in terms of money is gonna be rather difficult, but, I mean, the thing of Richard Uihlein, the businessman from the northern suburbs of Chicago, right, so it was a $2 million donation on the same day as the debate, you know, a few days ago.

This was the second donation that he's given directly to the Bailey campaign since the primary.

The first one was a $1 million donation.

I believe it was August 29th.

But, I mean, look.

You know, Richard Uihlein has spent more than $50 million on this governor's race in support of Bailey.

He has spent that money on, you know, an independent expenditure committee, you know, that is allied with Bailey.

The People Who Play By the Rules PAC that's run by Dan Proft who's come out with a lot of these newspapers, as we know, these political mailings masquerading his newspapers.

I mean, is it gonna be enough?

I mean, it's more than what Ken Griffin put up for the Griffin slate.

I mean, you know, I think that the tally now for you Uihlein in terms of money, total money that he has helped Bailey is around $54 million.

Ken Griffin helped with $50 million for his slate of candidates, which included Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin for governor, and he finished third in the Republican primary to Bailey, you know, whose bankroll paled in comparison, right?

So I think if you asked the Bailey campaign, money, really, to them, obviously, it would be the best thing in the world.

They don't have the staff.

They don't have the press staff that the Pritzker campaign has.

They don't have, you know, APO researchers, you name it, you know?

But, you know, the Bailey campaign has been here before.

Of course, you know, the reason that, you know, one could argue that he won the primary is, you know, primary voters tend to get a little excited for candidates like Bailey, who, you know, people like Pritzker regard as extreme, and, of course, Pritzker, again, we're talking about money.

He poured in 20, $30 million to the Democratic Governor's Association to run ads for Bailey as his preferred candidate.

So as sleazy as some people thought that was, obviously, I'm sure that if you asked the Pritzker camp, it worked, but you know, when you ask, "Is Uihlein pouring in enough money?"

I mean, I think it's hard to tell because he's already put in $50 million for Bailey.

That's not an insignificant amount compared to what Pritzker's put in.

- You know, one thing that was very clear from the debates, the money issue came in subtly when you realized this is free media.

This is Bailey's chance.

This is why he and, well, Pritzker also, but they would not answer their questions because they had certain things they wanted to get out.

The key thing was when Bailey answered a question about the Safety Act and like this new law that's gonna take effect that includes cashless bail, he started talking about the Prison Review Board and people who have gotten out by, you know, decisions by Pritzker appointees who have set them free on parole, and then they've committed new crimes.

It was very non-sequitur.

It was very out, you know, and Pritzker just put it down as, "That's an independent body," which, okay, it is, but he makes the appointments.

And it was it was a scandal or a scandal that the Republicans have been trying to get traction on for a year.

Clearly, here's an example of where, if he had the money, he could make a real nice hit spot about, "Your governor has set these criminals free," you know?

You can see, and he doesn't have that kind of money, so he has that free media, he has that one opportunity to get it out there, and that's not an effective way to get your message out.

- That brings up an interesting point.

What's the future when you talk about campaigns that are raising this amount of cash?

And this isn't the first race that we're seeing this.

Is there room for a grassroots campaign, someone who truly comes up and has the backing of the people, or has that gone away?

John, I'll start with you.

- You know, unless this Mr. Smith goes to Washington, I really don't, you know.

The time it takes to raise money, and that's what most politicians will tell ya.

"I love the job.

The thing I hate is raising money."

And, you know, many politicians truly are shy about asking for money, but it's when you are going to get somebody who can write a check for $30 million at one time, I mean, who does that, (laughs) you know?

I don't wanna sound cynical.

There is room for somebody to come up, you know, and the populous to rises above and really catches on.

I think it's true that Barack Obama raised a lot of money from very small donations, you know.

That's kind of a different level though, but it is very, very difficult, and it scares people away.

Why should I even try when it's against this guy, this person who has, you know, his own Fortune 500, the Fortune 400 list, the most of the most affluent people in America?

- Sure, we hear that a lot.

I wanted to move to another issue, though.

Republicans have made a great amount of hay in criticizing Democrats over the last 10 years or more about former House speaker and former Illinois Democratic party Chair Mike Madigan.

We hear this week that there are now new accusations.

He was caught up in a scandal involving ComEd and faces charges on that now accusations that there was a pay for a play or a bribery scheme involving AT&T.

Jeremy, there are some people crying foul and saying, "You know, the timing on this is awful.

It's politically motivated."

But at the same time, if the accusation is there and the charges need to be filed, then that oughta be brought to light as well.

What's the latest there?

What's going on?

- Well, the Republicans have been using the Madigan factor all election long, even during the primary.

I know I go back to the Ken Griffin slate.

Every candidate on that slate, and I use that as an example from, you know, Richard Irvin for governor down to Shannon Teresi for comptroller, they all, you know, talked about restoring faith in government and ridding it of corruption, and then they all talked about Mike Madigan.

Well, it really hasn't gained a lot of traction with voters, at least in the primary, and this whole issue with Madigan and the indictment and ComEd and their indictments, I mean, it just seems that party identification so far in itself has prevailed over whether the dominant party in Illinois has had a lot of corruption.

I think it's really hard to predict whether that's going to resonate with voters, especially in a democratic state, especially if you have Republicans who are trying or, you know, democratic operatives who are trying to convince, you know, their own party and independence and undecideds that the other side's aligned with Donald Trump.

And it seems like it's like, "Okay, well if the Republicans are going to use the Madigan factor, we're gonna use the Trump factor," and obviously, the Democrats have the upper hand in that respect.

Now, yeah, I mean, you know, as far as like the timing with the election and all that, I mean, the US attorney's office really doesn't operate that way.

You know, I mean, they really don't, but I do think, though, it's interesting because usually, I think that there is an understanding that they do look at optics when it comes to the timing of charges, but is there any clear motivation for them to do this before the election?

I haven't really gotten, you know, that sense, but even whether, you know, the Madigan factor is really, you're not really hearing a lot of that rhetoric anymore from Darren Bailey at Pritzker.

He's not really bringing up Madigan like he used to anyway.

So it almost makes you wonder, is the Bailey campaign starting to question whether that's a viable strategy to go against Pritzker by just bringing up Madigan and thinking that that's gonna work.

- John, could it also be, I mean, have Illinoisans reached scandal fatigue to the point where they're looking the other way?

Okay, this is just another scandal.

- It's separate.

They're separating.

It's a scandal.

It's corruption.

It's horrible corruption.

But my guy is great, and we've got a new speaker if I'm a Democrat or until if and when he goes on trial, I don't think people will pay attention to Madigan.

He's kind of yesterday's news.

It was a big deal when he had to quit his longest tenure of all time, and they're not thinking about Madigan in terms of the election.

The Republicans have tried to bring him into the Supreme Court race, and he was very tied to the Supreme Court at one time but no longer.

I don't think it's effective.

I don't think people are thinking about Mike Madigan when they vote on November 8th.

- One more issue that we wanna get to with just a short amount of time remaining.

The Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, lawmakers who take a look at policies that agencies across the state are putting in place, met earlier this week, and they were talking a lot about COVID guidelines and rules that are being put in place or being continued.

And at one point, on lawmaker even went so far as to say COVID is over, perhaps in terms of saying that all the guidelines ought to be dropped.

Will COVID continue to be a big issue in the spring legislative session, Jeremy?

- I mean, I haven't heard any indication of that.

As far as like, you know, going fast forwarding to the spring, I haven't gotten any indication of that.

The only thing that I've heard about is veto session, and it seems at least so far the main issue for veto.

And I know that this could change, and John would know better than me, he's done this a long time, is the Safety Act, and like, you know, just, you know, reviewing some of the language of the Pretrial Fairness Provision, the no cash bail before going forward.

I haven't heard anything about COVID mitigations being a topic, you know, for the legislature in the near future.

- Lots of topics in a limited time for the legislature.

Lots of topics in a limited time for "Capitol View."

We're out of time for this week, but John and Jeremy, thanks so much for your time.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- And I'm Jennifer Fuller.

You can find us online at wsiu.org and at our YouTube channel.

Until next time, thanks for joining us on "Capitol View."