State Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, was at Cliffbreakers last Thursday to speak at a fundraiser for Democratic Senate candidate Marla Wilson, who is challenging Sen. Dave Syverson, R-Rockford, in the Nov. 2 election. We talked. Here is an edited portion of our conversation.
Sweeny: Won’t it be hard for Senate Democrats to hold the majority, let alone add new members?
Cullerton: We have 37 (out of 59). There are five senators we have to hold, and it looks very good. We have some incumbent (Republicans) we want to challenge. People are mad at incumbents. We’re seeing polls that show that where there are incumbent Republicans we have a good chance of challenging them.”
Sweeny: What about this district, the 34th?
Cullerton: That’s why we’re here. If we did a poll and it said there was no chance of winning, we would not be here. We (Senate Democrats) have been very successful in raising money, much more so than the other side.
Sweeny: Why is that?
Cullerton: People know I’m going to be Senate president because there’s no way we’re going to lose eight seats. We’re going to prioritize spending that money. What we see here is that Dave is very well known. You can spend money on television and mailings to educate people, and then you know both candidates. And then there’s a fact that Marla Wilson is a woman, and there’s a history of electing (four) women state senators here. There are more women voters than men, and I don’t know that we’ve run a strong woman candidate in the past against Syverson.
Sweeny: Nobody’s really challenged Dave that much.
Cullerton: This isn’t a personal thing against Dave. This is politics. When you‘ve been here quite some time and you have the highest unemployment in the state, I think you have to have some accountability for what you’re doing. When you look at the voting record, especially this last year when I’ve been president, (he) is the party of no. And when it comes to the hardest thing we have, the budget, he’s been no help. Didn’t vote for any cuts, didn’t even vote to cut his own salary.
Sweeny: Why is Syverson getting the endorsement of the building trade unions?
Cullerton: I think because there’s a familiarity with Dave. I am going to meet with the unions, and I’m going to go to educate the unions. I think they’re not fully informed as to what has been going on in Springfield. Syverson’s overall voting record for labor according to the AFL-CIO is somewhere in the 20s and 30s. What’s most important is the people who are union members who vote. We’re going to educate them.
Sweeny: Do you support the governor’s 1 percentage-point tax increase plan?
Cullerton: I sponsored the bill to pass it.
Sweeny: Your candidate Marla Wilson told me she doesn’t support it.
Cullerton: We have the votes for it. We have to make sure Democrats are in the majority (in 2011). If Republicans were the majority party it’s possible they wouldn’t even call that bill.
Sweeny: Can you work with the governor if his name is Bill Brady?
Cullerton: Brady doesn’t have a clue about the state budget. If Kirk Dillard would have won the Republican primary he would have been a much tougher opponent for Pat Quinn. Brady has a nice smile, nice wife, nice family, but examine his record as a legislator. He’s done nothing.
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Cullerton admits that “People are mad at incumbents “.
But, Democrats are the majority party. Our State’s economy is in shambles. Guess who is to blame? Therefore, Democrats have much more to fear from a public “uprising” against incumbents, than do Republicans.
It seems that Cullerton is the one who “doesn’t have a clue”.
Democrats in charge of the state and everything is going downhill, so let’s vote them back in! Sounds like the Democrats in Washington, ran everything since 2007 and ran up the debt to where it is today.
I wonder why these same Democrats will not run on their accomplishments? Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have been there for the long haul and helped in getting us where we are today.
No Jobs
Health Care Cost Rising again
Debt for years
No Solutions – even with all the votes needed to pass anything
But they can profile the rich for tax increases! Who said profiling was bad?
Wow! Cullerton is not only insulting to the constitients but his arguments are ridiculous.
First, while yes people are mad about the current state of affairs in government, most of that is due to the activities of the Democrats. They have done such a wonderful job with Illinois. They have raised unemployment and the state deficit while attempting to continue to raise taxes. While it may be true that Illinois has one of the lowest State Income Taxes but we also have very few deductions in comparison to State’s such as Iowa (i.e. while our tax rate is lower a citizen of Iowa may be paying lower income taxes due to the amount of deductions allowed.) Further, our other taxes are incredibly high (including but not limited to our sales tax, real estate tax and property taxes.) They challenge even the levels of some of the States without a State Income Tax such as Florida and Texas. The high business taxes have run many business to leave Illinois and move to nearby States such as Indiana or even south or out of the Country. The idea of increasing taxes in a time when many people are just fighting to find employment is crazy. Further, without a business plan to begin to increase the debt we already have justs means that the Democrats are going to continue to spend until Illinois is the first State to ever have to file for bankruptcy.
Next, I just love the comment about educating the labor unions. While I admit that I am not personally a fan of the labor unions but I would never say that they aren’t educated on the issues. Labor Unions have always been involved in politics and political campaigns. They also do more homeword and educate their members in regards to the candidates. I would be willing to bet that they have looked into Dave Syverson’s voting record and what they found is that Cullerton was wrong. Unions aren’t afraid to stand up for the candidate which best supports their interests and I have a feeling that they would be “educating” Cullerton on these issues.
The idea that women will vote for a woman just because she is a woman is insane and insulting. If that was the case, I would be willing to bet that the president would be Hillary Clinton. Women fought for the right to vote because we have our own minds and we are intelligent human beings. Women view the candidates and vote for the candidate based on the candidates experiences, creditials and views that are similar to our own. Just because a candidate is a woman doesn’t mean that they share the same values and ideas. In regards to Marla Wilson, she has yet to articulate her goals and plans as a Senator. The only thing she has said is that she got into politics because she worked on Barack Obama’s campaign (in which she passed out leaflets of information) and that immigration was not an issue she needed to address because she would never have to deal with it. Even at her own fundraiser, she didn’t speak for herself. Cullerton spoke for her which I am guessing was an embarassment since there were only around 22 people in attendance. If I was to go by Cullerton’s analysis that women vote for women, I would have to say that Miss Piggy is a better candidate. At least she speaks up for herself and states her ideas and she’s also a puppet.
Dave Syverson is a better candidate because he knows Rockford and has shown a committee to the people of Rockford, whether they are Republicans or Democrats. He has fought for Rockford when the rest of the State has looked at Rockford as a second rate city. He has a plan to build Rockford and has continually tried to implement it for 18 years, just to have the rest of the State fight against him.