GOP gubernatorial hopeful Bruce Rauner and his Lt. Governor Evelyn Sanguinetti spoke to folks gathered at Panera in Fox River Grove on Saturday afternoon.
18-year old Jenna Wing, a candidate for Republican Precinct Committeeman in Fox River Grove, was the inspiration for Saturday’s meeting.
The meeting was inspired by 18-year old Precinct Committeeman candidate Jenna Wing, moderator Andrew Gasser said.
Gasser recognized Republican Precinct Committeemen by asking them to raise their hands.
Moderator Andrew Gasser asked those who were Precinct Committeemen to raise their hands.
Then he asked that they keep their hands up while those who were candidates for Precinct Committee raised their hands.
I was standing in the middle of the room at the time, but my guess is almost half in attendance at the time had their hands raised. By the time the meeting had ended fifty-seven people had showed up.
I started taking notes when Rauner stated, “We’re in a death spiral.
“Being re-elected is not on my Top 10 list,” he continued.
Bruce Rauner speaks as Evelyn Sanguinetti and others in Fox River Grove listen.
“I believe we need to restore public service in Springfield rather than [partisan politics].”
Rauner told of a national group favoring term limits that he had convinced to come into Illinois.
He reported that 160,000 signatures of the over 300,000 needed had been gathered. [Actually, at least twice the minimum required need to be collected.]
“When we get it on the ballot, it will pass,” he said quoting polling results for Republicans and Democrats favoring term limits.
“Then it will be eight years and out” brought applause from the crowd.
He quoted former U.S. Senator Everett Dirksen:
“Cleanliness is next to godliness, except in Springfield…where it is next to impossible.”
Rauner next explained his role in managing pension funds.
“I made you 17.4% over thirty-two years while your pension was earning 7%,” he said.
“I’m going to run Springfield like a business” got applause, too.
Evelyn Sanguinetti
Evelyn Sanguinetti, Rauner’s candidate for Lt. Governor spoke next.
She told how her mother came from Cuba and her father from Equator.
“My mom had me when she was 15 years old.”
She explained she failed first grade and then transferred to a magnet school where she learned to be a concert pianist, a skill that got her a full scholarship to a Florida university.
She chairs the DuPage County Republican Hispanic group. Her goal is to “let my fellow Hispanics know they are really Republicans, but just don’t know it.”
She praised Rauner as someone who “will bring truth to that power [in Springfield].”
Rauner retook the floor and reported that he has raised over $6 million of which he had contributed $1.2 million.
“We’re kicking tails all over,” he said in reference to various local GOP straw polls.
Rauner told of speaking to a Romanian church full of Democrats one Sunday and getting a positive response. A Democrat had never done that.
“As conservative Democrats, we’re not going to carry Cook County,” he continued, [but] we need 22% in Chicago. I think we’ll get in the high twenties.”
He answered questions on pensions, the business climate, his relationship with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel, Common Core and Obamacare before I had to leave.
Three potential new McHenry County Board members, David Stieper of Barrington Hills, Charles Wheeler of McHenry and Andrew Gasser of Fox River Grove, listen to GOP gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner. Wheeler is unopposed in his quest for a GOP nomination in District 4 with no Democrat on the fall ballot. Stieper and Gasser are waging a three-way race with incumbent Republican Robert Nowak, previously of Cary, now of Lake in the Hills, for two slots on the ballot in district 1. The winners will face off against Democrat Nick Chirikos of Algonquin.
Attending the event were
- Jeff Thorsen, a candidate for County Treasurer
- McHenry County State’s Attorney Lou Bianchi
- County Board candidates Donna Kurtz, Andrew Gasser, Charles Wheeler and David Stieper.
- McHenry County College Board members Chris Jenner and Tom Wilbeck
- Algonquin Township Trustee Larry Emery
- Nunda Township Republican Party Chairman Mark Daniel, also Vice Chairman of the County Central Committee, the first to host Rauner at an event locally
The event was not held in the Panera meeting room. It would have been too small.
Even regular customers were listening to Rauner make his pitch.
The best candidate by far to cut through all the misinformation, especially about education and pensions.
From collective bargaining and administrative contract negotiations at the local school board level to legislative benefit increases at the state level, the US Dept of Education at the federal level, local tax referendums, local non referendum bonds, money coming and going in all directions, it’s become virtually impossible for the average citizen to understand how their tax money is being spent on public education and even to get good information on how struggling students whom are supposedly meeting expectations are tracking from year to year to avoid remedial level college classes.
Maybe the problem with remedial classes is the high schools, their teachers, and their administrators.
How can a kid graduate with a good grade in such and such and receive praise from a teacher only to be told upon entering college that he/she has to take a remedial course in that same subject? It’s money they shouldn’t have to spend and they shouldn’t be behind.
Oh, I know, the college wants the money for that extra course.
Yah, I know all those admins. have been in business for years and know that their students get stuck in remedial classes. How many years does it take for the college folks to talk to the high schools and figure out what’s wrong? C’mon already. Fire the high school admins and the college admins, THEY are the cause of students who get stuck in remedial classes.
This didn’t just start happening last week, last year, etc.
Folks need to do their research.
It is all compiled at http://www.norauner.com
Not a single anonymous claim there.
Signed sealed and delivered.
From Illinois Review: “Jon Zahm, who writes an anti-Rauner blog and is believed to be working either directly or tangentially for Dillard, ” http://illinoisreview.typepad.com/illinoisreview/2013/09/conservative-battle-lines-being-drawn-as-gop-gubernatorial-race-heats-up.html
Being college material is not the goal of a high school, nor should it be.
When you survive high school math, it makes you a high school graduate not necessarily ready for college math.
I applaud MCC for the opportunity of zero level courses for those who are not ready for college algebra.
And for the record, these are not “remedial” courses, they are basic algebra and intermediate algebra, so unless your high school graduates tested high on the ACT’s they may actually need to LEARN this stuff before moving on.
Looks like the GOP is going to eat its own again, just like in the 2012 presidential race.
The establishment GOP will stop at nothing to ensure the nominee is a big government “Republican” loser (Jon Zahm — Illinois campaign chair for big government “Republican” loser Santorum).
I’ll keep packing, can’t afford to stay in Illinois for 4 more years of Quinn.
Rahm Shmahm.
Which of the three establishment career politician candidates are publicly saying the public sector union bosses are the problem, and they will take them on?
Answer: None.
Chris Jenner, your comments expose you as someone who cares little about taxpayers dollars and as someone who hasn’t a clue about McHenry County politics let alone, Illinois Republican politics and the record (Rick Santorum a big government Republican?).
You really think Rauner is going to be an effective, fiscally conservative governor just because he says he will?
Take a look at his record on this campaign.
Rauner has blown-through MILLIONS of dollars trying to buy a name for himself based on the illusion that he is an outsider to politics.
Most of that money has gone to out-of-state high-priced political consultants.
Think of what he’ll do if he were governor with taxpayer dollars.
Yup, spend-spend-spend.
Jon Zahm is a genuine champion and leader in the conservative movement in this state, and has done a masterful job of exposing the hypocrisy of Bruce Rauner from the beginning through the norauner.com site.
And, as if any more proof was needed on the hypocrisy of Rauner, the Rauner campaign yesterday (12/9), through its front ChampionNews.net and its own campaign retweet of a story like it was some huge revelation, tried to tag Kirk Dillard as a Barack Obama supporter because Dillard attended Obama’s first inaugeration, and gave a few hundred dollars to the inaugural committee.
Zahm, CapitolFax, and more importantly many others are not fooled and quickly called Rauner on the Rauner record of donating much much more to Democrats like Rahm Emanuel, not just in Illinois, but across the country.
And like it or not, the 4 major Republican candidates for governor are ALL establishment career politicians.
The only difference with Rauner is he’s never been elected to any public office.
But his record in business and as a big-money campaign donor is clear he is just another career politician milking the system, too.
The real hypocrisy is Rauner doesn’t have the character to admit it.
A few comments for SNL.
“Being college material is not the goal of a high school, nor should it be.”
“But his record in business and as a big-money campaign donor is clear he is just another career politician milking the system, too.”
By the way, one of the keystone’s in Rauner’s campaign is support of legislation to impose term limits to prevent career politicians.