By: Mark Glennon*
Gov. JB Pritzker on Saturday spoke at the New Hampshire Democratic Party’s annual convention, a move widely seen as an expression of interest in running for president. “You go to New Hampshire at this time to say, ‘I’m interested (in being president),'” said Chris Mooney to the State Journal Register. Mooney is a political science professor at the University of Illinois Chicago and a political commentator. “He’s running as much as anybody,” Mooney added.
The speech was far more spirited and aggressive than Pritzker typically gives, and appears to have been received extremely well by the Democratic audience. He provided a full-throated endorsement of central policy themes of President Biden and Democrats at the national level, with no exceptions or qualifications whatsoever.
By the end of his speech, as reported by Politico, Pritzker had won over a group of at least one county’s delegates who enthusiastically told a Politico reporter that they’d like to see him run for higher office. “I think he should be our next president,” said a county co-chair while a couple other delegates seated in her row nodded along. “He’s got great energy. He’s perfect.”
A full video of Pritzker’s speech is embedded below but here, offered without comment, are some highlights of what else he said after he endorsed various local candidates:
He described himself as a “Ukrainian-American, Jewish, Democratic, billionaire businessman,” which he acknowledged is not typically what Democrats look for in candidates.
He blamed former Governor Bruce Rauner for all Illinois’ fiscal problems that he inherited. “The state was facing unprecedented challenges because we had a Republican governor who decided to hold the state budget hostage,” he said.
He listed these as being among his successes as governor: raising the minimum wage to $15/hour, a record-setting infrastructure bill, proper handling of the pandemic, comprehensive laws to fight climate change, enshrinement of reproductive rights into Illinois law, protecting elections, expanded voting rights, reforming the criminal justice system, balancing the budget and legalizing cannabis with “the most equity-centric” approach in the country.
He repeated the line he has often used about Donald Trump, calling him a “racist, misogynistic, homophobic, xenophobic president.”
The speech was intensely partisan – hateful, it would be fair to say. Republicans, he repeatedly said, have no real interest in protecting lives, and instead only yell about “fake” problems. Republicans are a party of fear, he said, “afraid of everything from workers’ rights, student debt forgiveness and making high income earners, like me, pay the highest tax rates.”
“I’m here to tell you that the GOP is naked and afraid,” Pritzker said. “Afraid of the Democratic agenda, and by God they are afraid of the world women have built for themselves.”
He got a standing ovation for saying this: “Republicans want to distract you into believing that gay marriage, black history, Disneyworld and library books are more of a threat to our children than an AR-15. And if we can’t call bullshit on that, then, Democrats, we don’t deserve to win elections.”
*Mark Glennon is founder of Wirepoints.
- Further information from Wirepoints:
- Pritzker for president and much more – The Dialogue: Episode 37
- Why ‘Pritzker For President’ Makes Perfect Sense
- Beyond Ridiculous: Pritzker Extends Emergency COVID Powers Another 30 Days. Why?
- Destroying democracy to save democracy, JB Pritzker-style
- Pritzker Goes To Bat For What The Wall Street Journal Calls ‘One Of The Greatest Fiscal Cons In History’ – Wirepoints
Audio and summary 
A largely unasked question is becoming glaring: Is Illinois doing all it should to use artificial intelligence to make government cost less and work better? So far, the evidence says no.
Audio and summary
Pritzker did this when he was asked about running for re-election for tyrant and he was having so much fun leading the media and people of Illinois on. Now he’s playing his little game of tag about running for President, this guy must seriously get off by playing these little childish games, the one thing we all better remember if he does run for President we all do know who we are left with for the remainder of his term and god help us all.
My thanks to Wirepoints and all you do to get the word out. We are all hurting from the leftist agenda but we need to support the cause. It is encouraging to see how many Illinoisans feel the same way. Heartfelt thanks to you all.
You’re right, Larry. Everyone at Wirepoints and those who comment here make my heart sing ! So good to know in these challenging times that there are straight-thinking people out there. Thanks! . And especially Mark and Ted and Matt and John and the Wirepoints staff who do so much fine research and make it available to us ! Thanks again !
We are all guilty of letting this happen to us.
The information is out there…but who is doing anything about it?
Who should be “doing something about it”? If the answer to that isn’t “me!”, then the answer is “nobody “.
We have options: tax objection litigation, incorporation into limited- government-borrowing- ability Village(s) which compete for Chicago’s State income tax revenue distribution , intense scrutiny on individual political power players’ financial dealing as potential civil litigation targets….
Yet we all sit mired in our inertia.
Shame on us who know better.
It’s gaslighting: an effective technique used by manipulative predators. The targets of the predator’s factually inaccurate attacks are threats to his own power, so he must isolate his cult of mindless fealty from the vicinity of any truth other than the truth described and allowed by the predator himself. But the target audience of listeners must be somewhat willing participants in their own bamboozlement. They must get some emotional reward for allowing predator to maintain his hold on them. Two possibilities : his followers are corrupt and personally profit by maintaining this individual in a position of great power, or,… Read more »
His thirst for power knows no bounds. Check out: https://www.breitbart.com/health/2022/06/20/tablet-magazine-wealthy-pritzker-family-funds-transgender-movement/
Such a joke. I had to blink just to make sure this isn’t fantasyland. This tells you how left of center everything is. Screaming, crying, my feelings are hurt, and everything else that this fool propagates on a daily basis. These wokesters are insane. Pritzker running the country? He put this state and city in shambles. Complete nincompoop.
Pritzker’s first four accomplishments, as written-up here, can double as reasons for record high inflation, which is expected to persist. I don’t consider the rest of the list accomplishments.
The governor’s appearance in NH could signal that the Democrats don’t think Biden is a viable candidate for a second term.
I would be so delighted if he runs, because it could become a debate on all the policies the modern left stands for. He apparently is ready to do that. Bring it on.
There cannot be debate with crazy people who hate you. The right, for decades, has naively believed that we can discuss, debate and expose the terrible leftist policies merely by putting them out in the open. Well, awful leftist policies are out in the open – and now they’re embraced, and enforced, by the tiny minority that controls every major institution in America. Did the Bolshevik care to debate the merits of communism vs Capitalism? No they did not. Does antifa care to peacefully discuss the merits of an issue when they rally? No, they do not. Just as America’s… Read more »
When someone says that you’re evil and they want to harm you, you should listen.
Like a popular radio and tv show host repeatedly says – they want to take your guns away so they can hurt you.
The current gun control negotiations in the Senate now reflect this philosophy. One senator, I believe Kennedy, asked if the gun control negotiations addressed inner city murders and the negotiators said no, the negotiations only address gun control for current owners. He said he could not vote for any bill that ignores inner city murders.
Your absolutely correct and the Republican Party in Illinois does not understand this.
Republicans need to get people to understand the Theory of the Spilled Milk.
Any parent has gone through the problem of spilled milk with their toddlers. The milk is spilled, and it will be a big job to clean it up. Doesn’t matter if the child meant to spill it or not, it is still on the floor.
We can’t clean it up by waving a wand, so don’t expect miracles.
But the first thing to do is take the cup of milk away from the Democrats who are dumping it on the floor!
Pulling the curtain just a little back on the extremism of J.B. Pritzker:
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/billionaire-family-pushing-synthetic-sex-identities-ssi-pritzkers
Infanticide is childs play (pun intended) compared to SSI.
That was an appalling and disgusting read (and I am ***still*** terrified by the article’s accompanying illustration, lol…!!!)…
I read that earlier here on wirepoints but it’s so strange that there is no other news on it. It’s so weird I don’t know what to make of it.
Ben Shapiro’s radio show/podcast discussed this in the first hour, and mercilessly mocked Fatty McFatso…So millions of conservative media consumers know about it…but progressives? Hardly any at all….
Dear God! I could only make it through half of his speech. The number of platitudes, untruths, and bumper sticker slogans in his speech was like he vomited up every single DNC talk point. Thanks for the summary and for listening to his entire speech so we don’t have to.
“making high income earners, like me”
He doesn’t earn anything other than his gov. salary of $177,412, which he paid $300,000,000 to get. His family trusts earns the income and it is distributed to him in the form of distributions. He pays taxes on the distribution but he doesn’t earn the income in any sense that you or I would understand.
Welcome to capitalism. Isn’t that the great American aspiration?
And yet, he is a Democrat. Cognitive dissonance, the great problem for the current lefties.
The Biden Administration has been an unmitigated disaster, and there is virtually no chance it gets any better. They were so focused on getting Trump out of the White House that they didn’t care about electing an individual that was already exhibiting symptoms of mental incapacitation. They also had no working plan for moving the country forward and were handcuffed by trying to keep a fractured party with no margin for error together. So they promised everybody something, did a ton of damage with printing money, and set the US economy into chaos. They have harmed themselves beyond their worst… Read more »
All true, but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t get the Dem nomination. While some Dems are speaking up about the need to become more centrist, most are unapologetic about their far left agenda and are prepared to double down. They think they just need to be better at getting their message out. Pritzker knows that and his speech shows it.
Communists never, ever back down. They only get more violent.
If not president what about the chances of being VP?
My wife and I just drove to Panama City FL and back for vacation, Nashville is half way so we stopped for the night there. While in Nashville we had a beer at one of the many country bars, this one bluegrass. Enjoying the band a lot, my wife requested a song, the band leader shouted back “gladly, where y’all from?”… Not thinking my wife shouted out “Chicago” (we’re actually from Lockport), at that moment I slumped back in my chair like I didn’t know her, embarrassed. The entire bar fell silent, the whole band kind of went silent. But… Read more »
I just say outside of Chicago. I feel much better not diving into mendacity!
Democrats have no idea, literally no idea, how often Chicago and Illinois are used as punching bags. Turn on the radio/print/tv and some commenter is mocking Chicago/Illinois mercilessly. They show no mercy.
Every so often the mockery makes it through to the legacy media – like TX Gov. Abbott saying that more people are shot every weekend in Chicago than were shot at Uvale – and IL Democrats clutch their pearls and take the bait, making themselves looking like even bigger fools.
https://mobile.twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1538697774979481600?cxt=HHwWgICw5arextoqAAAA
Here’s a tweet about Chicago sent to 1,000,000 followers by Andy Ngo. This was sent last night at 8 pm. The internet/radio/print/tv is non-stop Chicago bashing 24/7. Lori/JB have no idea because they rarely if ever go outside CNN or MSNBC.
Listened to the Daily Wire podcast today….and Ben Shapiro was mocking JB Pritzker for showing up in N.H. to campaign…calling IL a failure when it came to coronavirus…like I said, Chicago/IL is mocked daily, heck, multiple times a day in conservative media. They really have no idea at all…”carnival barkers” and “misery splunkers” they call us…as we mercilessly mock them.
Trust me, everyone in my semi-rural county in NC knows what’s going on in Chicago and Illinois and everyone knows who Pritzker and Lightfoot are. They’re not watching CNN here. When I explain the way things are to them, they cannot imagine how people continue to live there. Nobody here would even consider spending any time in Chicago or even passing through. Pritzker would be nothing more than a big fat piñata if he ran for President.
And just recently the Sunday NY Times ran a travel puff piece about how wonderful and thriving Chicago was… the comments are the best part of the article, lol… here ya go: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/09/travel/things-to-do-chicago.html “From the South Side to the Loop, Chicago’s Innovative Spirit Thrives Theater, art and music are flourishing, and on the culinary scene, a 13-course Filipino tasting menu and a sleek Black-owned winery in Bronzeville are just a few of the city’s new offerings… COMMENT by CathyA: ‘Nice puff PR piece that reads like it was written by someone who works for Visit Chicago. it conveniently ignores all the… Read more »
Chicago: “Safe for tourists, except when it’s not!”
Regarding Chicago being the Black capital of the US, Chicago’s black population peaked in 1980, and since then 390,000 black people have voted with their feet.
Another possibility is that Nashville has been one of the many exodus spots that Chicagoans are relocating to. The locals are not necessarily thrilled because the prices for local real estate for them are going sky high which they maybe cannot afford. Probably best not bragging about it anymore, it has a bad reputation and unfortunately the days of Michael Jordan, Blackhawks Stanley Cups, it all takes a back seat to the violence, the mass exodus, and of course incompetence. Many Southern states are simply better run and make Illinois look like a laughing stock.
Yes thats a large part of it there, to see you getting priced out of areas your family has lived in for a century must hurt. Same for Panama City before hurricane Michael you could get a 3 bedroom condo right on the beach for under 300K today its 1.5 million or more. Thats only 2018 till now. Florida exploded with influx from blue states, the locals are not happy.
There’s definitely a self-sorting going on.
While in New Hampshire, did JB ask their governor how NH is able to spend the same amount per pupil on K-12 education as Illinois but without a state income tax and slightly lower property taxes?
Remember… everything the Democrats say the Republicans are doing, the Democrats are actually doing.
All the Dims are going to throw Biden under the bus now. Newsom, Pritz…who else?
I guess it didn’t dawn on me until right now how JB is just a young version of Biden. Blame all your ills on the GOP predecessor, don’t worry about surrounding yourself with competence, just make “historical” first picks of various intersections, the answer to everything is spend more money etc. Throwing in the part about being Ukranian is pretty amazing stuff too. I’d say I’d love to see him debate DeSantis, but since nobody calls these guys out on their BS, what would be the point…
The Dems don’t debate.
They can’t. It’s hard to debate when you have no ideas, only feelings.