03/12/2014
Madeleine Doubek
Reboot Illinois
Uh oh. Have you checked the calendar lately? Yup, it’s bad. Primary Election Day is next week and if you care about your home and our government, you really need to get involved, do some studying and vote. You’re gonna need an Election Scorecard to keep up.
Well, we’re here to try to help.
Still not sure who all is running, where they’re at on the big questions, what they claim they’re going to do for us, or perhaps, to us?
We’ve got the rundown for you on some key challenges in the major contested statewide races for governor, U.S. Senate and treasurer.
We know you’re pressed for time and your life is so crazed that you’re having trouble remembering who said what when, and how that compares to the other guys, so we’ve put it all together for you.
Our Election Scorecards will give you a quick look at how the candidates stand on some key issues side by side, or in the case of the GOP governor’s race, side by side by side by side.
In their own words and with our succinct summaries, we tell you where the Republican governor candidates are on the critical income tax question as we head toward the expiration of the temporary 5 percent income tax rate at year’s end.
Keep clicking away where our page says “next issue” and you can see what Bill Brady, Kirk Dillard, Bruce Rauner and Dan Rutherford have said on education, jobs and business challenges, corruption, pensions, budgeting, term limits and redistricting.
We’ve got the same rundown for incumbent Democrat Pat Quinn and his challenger Tio Hardiman too.
And we’ve provided scorecards for the contested Republican races for Senate between Jim Oberweis and Doug Truax as well as the treasurer’s race between state Rep. Tom Cross and DuPage County Auditor Bob Grogan.
You can quickly and easily see where the Oberweis and Truax stand on the Affordable Care Act, immigration and taxes. We’ve got side-by-side looks at what Cross and Grogan have said about the state budget, pensions and about keeping us all informed.
For a quick look at the backgrounds, experience and biographical information of all these candidates, just click on their names or their pictures at the top of the scorecard and that candidate’s biographical page will open.
We hope you’ll find these candidate fast facts and summaries useful and easy to digest. We hope they help you weigh the candidates against each other. Please feel free to share these pages with your family, friends, neighbors and social media followers.
This is our state. It’s our government. We own it. And if we intend to reboot Illinois for the better, we’ve got to read up, speak up, sound off and vote.
Need more? Don’t forget to take another look at how the governor candidates answered the Reboot Illinois/Better Government Association questionnaires.
Gov. Pat Quinn answered most of our questions in his questionnaire. He left the biggest one blank.
What questions are the candidates refusing to answer and why should we put up with it?
Madeleine Doubek is Reboot’s chief operating officer. She previously managed the Daily Herald newsroom. An award-winning journalist, Doubek served as the Daily Herald’s political writer and editor and led the paper’s project and investigative work. She believes in more of us taking charge of our state government. Read Doubek’s personal take on why she’s rebooting. You can find Reboot on Facebook and on Twitter @rebootillinois.