Shirley, IL (CAPITOL CITY NOW) – The Illinois Agricultural Legislative Roundtable is a milestone of Illinois’ campaign season. And while Republican gubernatorial nominee Darren Bailey told the audience on a McLean County farm Monday, “I’m one of you,” incumbent Gov. JB Pritzker (pictured, left) said, “Darren Bailey hasn’t done anything for farms. He doesn’t have a proposal for anybody to make sense.”
Pritzker, Bailey, and Republican U.S. Senate candidate Don Tracy (pictured, right) appeared one at a time and did not face one another. Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, did not participate.
Asked during a reporters’ question-and-answer if he can look the 2.25 million Pritzker voters of four years ago in the eye and tell them they made a terrible choice, Bailey said, “I do that every day. This man has just continued to decimate Illinois. If we can get voter turnout up, that’s the path to victory. I think everybody is feeling the consequences of the last four years.”
In his own question-and-answer session, the governor was asked how the sexual harassment scandal in the Illinois House – and Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch‘s (D-Hillside) handling of it – will hurt Democrats’ chances in November, Pritzker did not directly answer, but he did appear to throw shade on Welch’s tactics. He said a process to report misdeeds must be in place as soon as possible. “Why do we need a working group to reinvent the wheel? Let’s take one of the (systems other states have) that is working out there and put it in effect in the House of Representatives.”
If Tracy succeeds the retiring U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), one task he’ll face is attempting to pass a Farm Bill. He says the problem is that SNAP – the food stamps program – is now part of it. “That’s the problem with the food stamp program: there are too many people and in Congress that think that food stamps should be for everybody – anybody that wants it.” Tracy is in favor of work requirements for people who want food stamps.
Tracy told the crowd that with him in Washington, there would be one of the eight statewide elected officials who is a downstater. However, Bailey is also from downstate.
