Klonsky & Dems

Klonsky Upset Rauner is Leading

By Jim Vail

Pundit Mike Klonsky

When it comes to education reporting in this town, we have the following to choose from:

There are the mainstream corporate press that most people get their information from - Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun Times, Catalyst, DNAinfo and NPR Radio.

Then there are the news blogs and alternatives that represent a better perspective from the teachers and students' viewpoints - The Chicago Teachers Union blog, The Reader, Substance News, Secondcityteachers and Mike Klonsky's Small Talk. 

Today I'd like to focus on Mike Klonsky and his report on trying to figure out why Bruce Rauner is leading Pat Quinn in the polls for Illinois governor.

Klonsky's blog is informative and thoughtful. He mostly comments on mainstream media reports (while totally avoiding Substance News, a must read on teacher union activities where I once worked).

I notice Klonsky likes to focus on the politics and the big picture. Good for him. But he comments within the two-party framework box. He is a liberal democrat.

So here he laments the fact that Rauner, the multi-millionaire businessman who avoids taxes by off shoring his accounts and hates unions, is leading dud Quinn in the polls.

Klonsky writes that Vallas hasn't helped out. Really? The former Chicago schools chief who began the whole attack on teachers isn't helping Quinn? Choosing Vallas as a running mate simply proved Quinn is representing business and anti-union interests - not teachers or state workers.

Klonsky writes:

“My assessment? This is one of the worst the-other-guy’s-a-crook (“unpatriotic”) campaigns in recent memory, which has to work in favor of the guy with the most money. Quinn’s campaign has been pitiful, giving even the most avowed Rauner haters little to get excited about. Despite receiving gobs of money from the state’s unions, Quinn has done nothing to win back the trust and support of the state’s 850,000 union workers and especially its 87,000 retired teachers who he shafted with his support for the (unconstitutional on its face) pension-robbing SB-1 legislation. That is precisely the group of angry, activist voters who could put Quinn back on top.

Really? This guy thinks the campaign lacks the resolve to "win back the trust" of the poor pensioners whom Quinn screwed. How exactly is he supposed to do that? Smile more and sound presidential? Be a political star a la Clinton, right? Smile and shake black people's hands as you stab them in the back with increased racist drug laws. Because it's all about winning the election!

So why is Klonsky even rooting for Quinn. He acknowledges the guy backs ed reform, and supports huge pension cuts. He is a bland machinist and that is the reason why the top chose him after ousting Blagojevich who could actually think for himself and was loath to just take orders all the time.

So why do you write about pension woes, destructive education reform policies and the attack on unions, and then lament that a guy like Quinn is losing?

I thought enlightened educators, like Mr. Klonsky, teach their students how to think outside the box.

In Klonsky's world of politics, the box is everything. 

Think of our upcoming gubernatorial election as a standardized test - you have to mark a or b. 

Or you can have a conscience and say I'm not going to participate in this sham, like those brave teachers who refused to give the ISAT test earlier this year. 

Quinn losing to the worst person in the world. Why?

Mike Klonsky Small Talk Blog

Workers need more than a $1.75 raise.

Mimicking former MSNBC great Keith Olbermann, I'm willing to go out on a limb a say that billionaire Bruce Rauner is the worst person in the world. And few would disagree, although Pat Quinn's running mate Paul Vallas may have a lock on second place. While Quinn proudly takes credit ("I was born for this...") for slashing the pension benefits of the state's public-sector workers, Rauner has vowed to do away with collective-bargaining rights and unions altogether, a la Gov. Walker in Wisconsin. 

So why does the worst person in the world, hated even by most Republicans, have a double-digit lead over Quinn the incumbent with just 12 weeks to go? This in a state where only 27% of voters vote Republican. I would argue that it's not just the money factor. And it's not only because running-mate Vallas has hardly lifted a finger to help Quinn. Rauner can't even spend all the dough he's raising, even while saturating the market for almost a year now with trite, negative, sometimes laughable ads (what ever happened to Bruce-the-Hammer?). I mean, there's only so much money you can spend on a campaign without moving beyond your own base. The rest, he's has had to spread around to a host of ultra-right-wing, Tea Party and Koch Bros.-aligned groups. 

What ever happened to #Hammer & Shake?

My assessment? This is one of the worst the-other-guy's-a-crook("unpatriotic") campaigns in recent memory, which has to work in favor of the guy with the most money. Quinn's campaign has been pitiful, giving even the most avowed Rauner haters little to get excited about. Despite receiving gobs of money from the state's unions, Quinn has done nothing to win back the trust and support of the state's 850,000 union workers and especially its 87,000 retired teachers who he shafted with his support for the (unconstitutional on its face) pension-robbing SB-1 legislation. That is precisely the group of angry, activist voters who could put Quinn back on top. 

Even Quinn's support for an increase in the state's minimum wage has been tepid. On an issue that could rally the base, the governor supports a measly buck-seventy-five-cent increase in the minimum wage (hardly livable) and that, only in a non-binding resolution. Pathetic. 

And barely a word since April regarding public education funding, charter school expansion, school closings or much of anything else. 

If it's his management team that's to blame for this weak stuff, Quinn needs to re-tool quickly.

http://michaelklonsky.blogspot.com/2014/08/quinn-losing-to-worst-person-in-world.html?