A Chicago Democrat is now calling Republican Governor Bruce Rauner “a gentleman.” That’s after invoking slavery to illustrate what he says are extreme policies from Rauner.
Kwame Raoul is an African-American state senator representing Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood. Yesterday, reporters asked him about meeting Governor Rauner halfway during this budget impasse.
"It depends on what the premise of what he wants. He could say he wants to put me in slavery, right? Should I meet him halfway?"
Today Raoul issued a written statement clarifying his comments. He says he wasn’t suggesting Rauner is racist and he wasn’t playing the race card… But he was trying to say Rauner’s positions are so extreme that a negotiation cannot bear fruit.
Raoul also says Rauner “has never failed to be a gentleman.”