Over a pot of tea at Petro’s, the politician-infested diner across the street from the Thompson Center, Pat Quinn was extolling his accomplishments as Illinois governor. Actually, he was extolling the commercials about his accomplishments. “Mayor Daley’s in one of them,” Quinn said. “He’s saying the whole state of Illinois should be grateful to me for getting Ford to expand here, 1,200 new jobs, and then we have the president reiterating: 1,200 new jobs, an entire second shift.”
This must be a heady time for the 61-year-old Quinn. A political lifer, he’s spent most of his career on the fringes, always stressing his identification with the average joe as opposed to those wealthy powerbrokers in charge. He helped create the Citizens Utility Board, the watchdog group that has blocked numerous utility rate hikes since its founding in 1984. Less well regarded is the “cutback amendment” he brought about through public referendum. Capitalizing on voter anger over a legislative pay raise in Springfield in 1980, he pushed for the constitutional amendment that reduced the size of the house and changed the way legislators are elected. It hasn’t saved taxpayers money, as he claimed it would, but it has concentrated power in the hands of party leaders, making the General Assembly stodgier and less open to compromise.
“The moment I got in he called me up,” Quinn said, “and he’s been a steadfast supporter, and counselor, ever since.”
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I asked Quinn if it had become harder to speak frankly, now that he had a position of power to preserve. “You always have to choose your words wisely,” he said. “Every day there’s someone from the press who wants your opinion, and you might pick your spots to express it. But I wouldn’t say that I in any way cut back on my core convictions.”
What are Quinn’s core convictions? He repeatedly emphasized that he and Obama were close. “I know how to work with President Obama, he supports me in this election, I’ve worked with him every day that I’ve been governor,” Quinn said. “We got federal money this summer, $450 million for our schools, $550 million for our health care. You need to have a governor who can go to Washington, work with the president, have the support of the president to get more federal money back here.”
When I asked Quinn later about Whitney’s proposed transaction tax, he quickly dismissed it as something only an outsider had the luxury of proposing. “It sounds good if you say it fast, but there’s just no votes for that. If you’re governor you can say I have a list of things to do—but if people aren’t gonna vote for it, you gotta go to Plan B.”
Quinn closed on message. “I have the courage to come to every debate and make sure everyone knows where I stand. . . . I fought for people who don’t have jobs, [for] our Put Illinois to Work program, a program that President Obama gave to us, and he supports me in this election.”
