Billionaire investor J.B. Pritzker and state Sen. Daniel Biss tried to change the dynamics of the Illinois Democratic governor's race Tuesday night, attacking each other during the first televised debate and relegating businessman Chris Kennedy largely to the sidelines.
Still, it was Kennedy, a first-time candidate from an iconic Massachusetts political family, who had one of the forum's most memorable moments. Asked to say something nice about Pritzker, Kennedy instead repeated his go-to line of attack, calling his opponent a "poster child of all that's wrong with the corrupt system in our state."
"It's difficult for me to heap praise on him. And that's where I unfortunately need to end it," Kennedy said.
The remark was a breach of debate protocol -- even Hillary Clinton was able to muster up praise for Donald Trump's children in an October 2016 presidential debate -- and afterward, Kennedy said he apologized to Pritzker.
But it was the Pritzker-Biss back-and-forth that emerged most clearly as the six Democratic governor hopefuls took part in an event hosted by NBC-Ch. 5 and Telemundo along with the Chicago Urban League and the Union League Club of Chicago.
"He's obviously worried. He kept naming me all night long," Biss said of Pritzker afterward. Later, Biss added, "What I left here wondering (was), 'What's in J.B. Pritzker's polling data? Why on this day was J.B. Pritzker all of a sudden going after me?'"
Pritzker is widely regarded as the front-runner ahead of the March 20 primary election, benefiting from pouring more than $42 million of his fortune into extensive TV advertising and building up his campaign while the Democratic establishment has coalesced around his candidacy.
That has left Kennedy and Biss running as outsiders and trying to emerge as Pritzker's top rival in hopes of shaping public perception that the contest is down to two candidates.
Biss, a seven-year lawmaker from Evanston, has been courting Democratic primary voters who liked Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders instead of Clinton in 2016. On Tuesday night, Biss went after the Democratic credentials of Pritzker, who has a long history of party activism and campaign fundraising before now seeking his first statewide elected office.
"I do think it's relevant to speak to the question of what a Democrat is, because J.B. went on television in 2012 and said he wasn't sure if he'd support Barack Obama's re-election campaign," Biss said. "He had to wait and see who the Republicans nominated. That's not what Democrats do. Democrats support Democrats."
Pritzker was a longtime supporter of Clinton, backing her over Obama in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary. In a March 2012 Bloomberg TV interview, Pritzker was asked if he'd support Obama's re-election as president. "We'll have to wait and see. I don't know who the nominee's going to be on the Republican side," Pritzker replied.
During Tuesday night's debate, Pritzker responded to Biss' attack. "I supported Barack Obama in 2012 and 2008 and I was chosen to run his early childhood summit," Pritzker said.
The attack came after Pritzker was asked whether Democratic support for his candidacy would influence the way he would deal with House Speaker Michael Madigan, who also chairs the state Democratic Party, and Joe Berrios, the Cook County assessor who chairs the Cook County Democratic organization.
"I've been an independent leader and independent thinker my entire life, and that won't change when I become governor. There are things that I'll agree with the speaker of the House about and things that I'll disagree with the speaker of the House," said Pritzker, who cited his support for independent redrawing of legislative districts and term limits on legislative leaders. Madigan is the nation's longest-serving state House speaker, holding that power for all but two years since 1983.
Biss said Pritzker "completely dodged" the question and contended the businessman is the Democrat whom a re-election-seeking Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner would most like to face in November.
"The best thing for (Rauner) in this election is to run against another billionaire who's Mike Madigan's candidate," Biss said. "If we want to be successful, we can't afford to do that. And so I think it's important to nominate someone with a record of standing up to Mike Madigan."
Pritzker responded that Biss was "the only candidate on this stage that voted for Mike Madigan for speaker of the House, that ran Mike Madigan's super (political action committee) in 2016, and you've accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from Springfield insiders and bankers and lobbyists."
"So I don't think you're the one to lecture here," Pritzker said to Biss. "I think you should just be who you are and stop criticizing others."
Biss served in the House for one term and backed Madigan for speaker before moving to the Senate. In 2016, Madigan's personal campaign fund gave $500,000 to Leading Illinois for Tomorrow, a federal PAC Biss ran that made about $10 million in independent expenditures, mainly for TV ads seeking to link Rauner to then-Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
As Pritzker focused his criticism on Biss, Pritzker completely ignored Kennedy, who had interjected that "Pritzker's emerged as the poster child for pay-to-play politics in this state."
Kennedy cited Rauner-funded TV ads featuring November 2008 FBI recordings of Pritzker speaking to now-imprisoned former Gov. Rod Blagojevich discussing various scenarios for filling the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Obama, who had been elected president. Though Blagojevich was widely known to be under major federal investigation at that point -- which Pritzker acknowledged on the recordings -- Pritzker was seeking a potential appointment as state treasurer if Blagojevich had a vacancy to fill in that office.
"You hear (Pritzker) on those tapes giving money to Blagojevich and then trying to get appointed to the treasurer's job," said Kennedy, a reference to earlier Pritzker campaign contributions to Blagojevich. "You hear him supporting people like Joe Berrios, Mike Madigan and getting the endorsement of the Democratic Party. You see him emerge as this force that is changing not only the pay-to-play politics in our state but changing it into something even worse."
Kennedy has been criticized by Democrats for his unusual praise of Rauner for both airing the Pritzker-Blagojevich ad and attacking entrenched Democratic interests. Even though Kennedy has said he is an "absolute critic" of the GOP governor, he also credited Rauner with "taking on this pay-to-play culture that needs to be criticized."
How rank-and-file Democrats view Kennedy's pro-Rauner comments may be one factor in the attention Pritzker is now devoting to Biss.
The fast-moving forum also included Downstate Madison County regional school superintendent Bob Daiber, Chicago activist Tio Hardiman, and perennial candidate Robert Marshall. Moderator Carol Marin covered a variety of topics, ranging from support for increasing the gas tax to whether the state should risk the loss of federal funding by granting sanctuary status to illegal immigrants. Only Daiber backed a gas-tax hike, while all the candidates supported sanctuary status.
All of the candidates except Marshall favor replacing the state's current 4.95 percent personal income-tax rate, which Democratic and Republican lawmakers raised last summer, with a graduated tax that would place a higher levy on higher incomes akin to the federal system. The change, which would require a voter-approved constitutional amendment, couldn't be considered for at least two years.
Pritzker, Biss and Kennedy declined to specify the highest tax rate they would support on those making the most money, but Pritzker and Kennedy each said Illinois should adopt changes to the state's tax code to grant additional tax credits to help the middle class until a graduated tax could be considered.
Among the top candidates, Biss is the only supporter of a financial transaction tax, known as the "LaSalle Street tax," on individual transactions in Chicago's financial and commodity exchanges. Such a tax, he said, could generate up to $8 billion.
But the transactions tax, long supported by the Chicago Teachers Union, is viewed as unlikely in an era of digitized trading in which exchanges could leave Chicago. The comment prompted a rebuke from Kennedy, who suggested Biss was trying to "promise something we can't deliver."
The major contenders also voiced wariness over state incentives and tax breaks to lure such companies as Amazon in its search for a second headquarters, though they didn't offer specifics.
"It has become a race to the bottom, unfortunately, around the nation where municipalities and states are offering huge tax benefits to bring companies to their state," Pritzker said. "Talent is what companies are looking for. We've got to invest in that."
Biss said the incentive issue is central to "what kind of economy we're trying to build" and that "large corporations that are famous enough to get a headline in the newspaper, that are big enough to hire the right lobbyists in Springfield, put their hands out. They get what they want."
Said Kennedy: "I think bringing companies, buying them into the states is a terrible economic development philosophy."
(c)2018 the Chicago Tribune
