-By Warner Todd Huston
The Republicans bumped up their gains in the Senate and the House of Representatives and also gained in Governor’s mansions across the nation and even deep, deep blue Illinois was affected by this GOP wave. But even with these few bright spots, Illinois is the worst state in the union on every level.
But, yes, last night there were some bright spots. First of all, two Democrats lost their seats in the House of Representatives.
In the 10th District over in Lake County, Robert Dold re-took the seat he lost in 2012 when Democrat Brad Schneider knocked him out. Schneider rode Obama’s coat tails into the House in the big 2012 Democrat sweep.
Dold endured a vicious campaign full of lies launched by Schneider and the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee. The Democrats claimed Dold was a “Tea Party” extremist and a major anti-abortion activist and neither are true.
But the shocker was the 12th District race where State Rep, Mike Bost just slammed Democrat incumbent Bill Enyart by a wide margin. I don’t think anyone had this major upset on their radar here in Illinois. Enyart only got one term and was ushered into office in 2012 along with the 10th District’s Schneider.
But the biggest upset is the race for Governor in the Land of Lincoln.
Businessman and first time candidate Bruce Rauner beat incumbent lifer politician Pat Quinn for governor and with a five percent win, it was by a margin that is quite a bit larger than anyone expected.
Rauner has been down in the polls almost from the beginning but often only by 1 or 2 percent. Many figured if Rauner won it would only be by 2 points if he were lucky.
This was another race that was utterly vicious with team Quinn launching one scurrilous attack after another in its ad campaign.
It wasn’t all good for the GOP though. The state Party was again useless. Unfortunately, the GOP didn’t pick up the single seat in the state house it needed to break the Democrats’ 71-seat super majority in Springfield. But at least the Democrats didn’t gain even more.
The only good thing for the state Party is that Republicans kept their hold on the State Comptroller’s office and also kept the Treasurer’s office with a sparse win for Tom Cross who now takes over from retiring fellow Republican Dan Rutherford. (As of the publishing of this, Cross had a small lead but the race still had not been called.)
So, while Illinois Republicans didn’t win as big in the Land Of Lincoln as elsewhere in the nation, the Grand Old Party did make some gains and is able to share in the 2014 GOP wave.
Regardless, Illinois is in the worst shape ever and is perennially in last or second to last place in every single metric that measures a successful state.
The Democrat Party has driven Illinois to this lowly status and yet, it still holds sway over the state’s political landscape. This shows how apathetic and uninformed the voters of Illinois really are and proves that the state will have to fall even further before it will be fixed.
Thanks to the corrupt Democrat Party led by the feckless Pat Quinn and the corrupt Mike Madigan and the useless Illinois GOP that can find but few successful candidates to challenge them. Illinois is an abject failure.
Here are some more of Illinois worst hits:
- Illinois a ‘Sinkhole State’: Rates Second Worst for Liability Per Taxpayer
- Illinois Worst in Midwest for Private Sector Job Creation
- Illinois One of the Worst GDP Growth in Entire Midwest
- Illinois Ranks as ‘Worst’ For Small Businesses
- Of the Fifty, Illinoisans Have Least Trust in the State Government
- Poll: Even People in Illinois Say Illinois Worst State to Live In
- Illinois has the most underfunded pensions in the country and faces a deficit growth of $17 million per day.
- The state also has the worst funded teachers pensions in the country.
- Illinois was identified as one of the worst states in the union for its oppressive, jobs-killing lawsuit climate
- Illinois had more home foreclosures than almost every other state.
- Illinois ranks as the 49th worst debtor state in the nation.
- Illinois was ranked the 48th worst state for business.
- Illinois ranked 48th for unemployment making it among the worst five states for joblessness.
- Its government also has one of the worst rankings for state transparency and accountability in the nation, too.
- As to big city stats, Chicago tops the nation with the highest unemployment rate.
- Illinois has the worst credit rating
- Illinois Tops Nation in Growth of Food Stamp Recipients
- Mercatus: Illinois ranks at the bottom of the most free states
- Illinois Ranks as One of Worst States for Losing Citizens
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, Wizbang.com, among many, many others. Huston has also appeared on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, and many local TV shows as well as numerous talk radio shows throughout the country.
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