The Illinois gubernatorial primary might be months away, but two top Democratic candidates are already battling it out in public. IPR'S Lauren Chooljian reports.
Former White House chief of staff Bill Daley has laid out a laundry list of reasons why he thinks Governor Pat Quinn isn’t quote, "up for the job." Daley says Quinn hasn’t done enough to fix a backlog of FOID card applications, he accused him of not meeting with the joint pension committee, and says the governor hasn’t done enough to reduce unemployment.
"He can’t lead the state out of this mess that it’s in and lead us all to a road to recovery."
Later, Quinn fought back.
"This is from a millionaire banker who was working for a bank he was the midwest chairman of a bank that helped drive the American economy into the ditch and created the great recession. I’m the person who’s trying to get that person out of that recession."
The Democrats did find common ground on one issue. Daley said the state was spending an “outrageous” amount of money on renovations to the capitol building. And hours later, Quinn said he’d pulled the plug on future funding to fix up the building.