The Illinois Primary Sucks

(This is a dreaded “political post” but not about the typical dumpster fire. Maybe it won’t be so bad.)

The Illinois primary for Governor is Tuesday. This post is a little late in coming but with a deadline comes desperation which brings motivation. The primaries should mostly be focused on the democrats because our governor is a republican (Brucey Rauner) and will certainly win his primary. What’s more important is Brucey is pretty well hated in our state and we will (almost certainly) elect a democrat for our next governor. In effect we’re choosing our next governor based on whoever wins the democratic primary Tuesday. So who’s running?

We have three “big candidates”: J.B. Pritzker, Chris Kennedy, and Daniel Bliss. Surprisingly (really unsurprisingly), I know who’s going to win. It’ll be J.B. Pritzker. Why? Because he’s rich as fuck that’s why.

Here’s a link that, while a bit older, describes what these people make or are worth. I know they’re different numbers but you get an idea about how much money they have to throw around. Kennedy made over a million dollars last year, and J.B. made about 9 million dollars and is worth over 3 billion dollars apparently. Biss, along with his wife, made $55,000. Wow. Biss is poor as fuck.

J.B. will win because if you have three billion dollars you can spam ads everywhere. Every few days I get a goddamn Pritzker ad in the mail (which immediately goes into the trash), and I see other ads for the bastard everywhere. Facebook spams me with Pritzker ads and the TV yells Pritzker ads at me. That’s all anyone in Illinois hears about is Jay Bee Pritzker. It’s exhausting.

Politicians don’t win elections based on how decent their policies and ideas are. They’re successful based on how well they can get their names out to the masses. It’s one big, stupid popularity contest. You could have the best candidate ever but if they don’t have money to throw around they don’t have any chance of winning. It’s sad, but that’s how it is. Politics Suck.

You could also blame the voters. People walk into the booths on primary day with little idea of anything. They vote for the name that is most familiar. How many ill-informed voters will stroll in to vote only knowing there’s some democrat named J.B. running? Enough of them to guarantee victory for the guy. JB? Hmm. I’ve heard of him. And his name sounds cool! *Fills in bubble*

I’m sick of rich people being in politics. I get that “business people” are seen as good candidates for office, but damn, can we quit having billionaires running for things? Having a fuckton of money doesn’t show you can successfully represent people; it just means you have a fuckton of money. So say hello to our future governor of Illinois J.B. Pritzker. He might be qualified and he might be a good governor and you should notice that I haven’t mentioned anything about specific policies. This is mostly because policies don’t matter and that’s not why he’ll win. He’ll win because he’s rich as fuck and can buy advertisements. That’s it. Once again, Politics Suck.