January 27, 2022:

Berkowitz and Martin update viewers on the IL GOP Governor’s primary. You can watch 24/7 yesterday’s program here. Also discussed is the Illinois violent crime problem (with particular attention to Chicago and Cook County– which may be good prototypes for what goes wrong in various other counties and cities in the State, as well).

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You can watch Berkowitz & Martin in Chicago on Cable Ch 21 (CAN TV):

-This Monday night, at 8:30 pm and midnight.

-This Tuesday night, at 9 pm.

and in Aurora on Cable ch 10 (ACTV-10)

-This coming Monday, Wed and Saturday, 6 pm.

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Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin’s entry into the Governor’s race last week expanded the GOP GOV primary field to include five full fledged campaigns. Team Irvin Bourne posted on their site a longish, but polished and well done, three minute video sales pitch.

Berkowitz and Martin discuss a ninety second, or so, clip of that sales pitch, aired during our show. That clip emphasizes what the public is hungering for, at a minimum as a first step and what Irvin Bourne deliver: A promise to do something about Illinois’ and especially Chicago’s and Cook County’s out of control crime. The IL Democrats don’t even make the promise, apparently because they don’t want to admit there is a crisis of crime= of monumental proportions. So it is as if they are saying, “Nothing to worry about, so long as you effectively hide in your residence- continue to shelter in place. We’ll let you know when we have a solution.” Of course, meanwhile, people get shot- even in their residences.

The No. 1 issue in the Country and Illinois is violent crime. President Biden and Governor Pritzker don’t even try to address it, except for ceremonial speeches about the more publicized deaths of police officers and some victims. Pritzker does allocate some money in his budget for violence protection. But there is no evidence that such programs have or will even come close to addressing the violent crime epidemic in Illinois.

Now the question is whether Irvin Bourne can deliver a complete, comprehensive proposal as to how to get control of violent crime in Illinois, the all important step 2. To begin to solve this problem, a Governor must use his office as a bully pulpit to exercise leadership on this issue over the Legislature, cities and counties, who ultimately can control violent crime, where the rubber hits the road, so to speak.

Let’s see what kind of proposal Irvin Bourne can develop and sell the public on over the next five months. And, then if they win the Primary, how do they develop the plan more in the General Election campaign, and sell it to the broader electorate, at large.

Of course, the same questions must be asked of the other GOP Gov candidates: The young adventure capitalist Jesse Sullivan, Self-made multi-millionaire businessman Gary Rabine, Senator and farmer Darren Bailey and former military man and Senator Paul Schimpf, and of course Governor Pritzker.

Indeed, shouldn’t the current Governor have such a public plan, from which he is working now? If he’s got one, he’s doing a good job of keeping it a secret and never taking questions from the press on it.

Berkowitz and Martin also air and assess a 30 second Jesse Sullivan ad on crime, released a few days ago, which is focused, clear and to the point. But, again, as with the others, he needs a comprehensive plan to sell to the electorate.

Berkowitz opines that in Chicago and Cook County the violent crime problem can be traced to terrible, soft on crime policies in the offices of Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, Circuit Court Chief Judge Tim Evans and State’s Attorney Kim Foxx. Indeed, some of their stronger critics would characterize the trio as the Axis of Evil, for their greater emphasis on protecting career criminal rights than hard working, law abiding citizen rights.

Curing the violent crime issues across the State will require a Governor who identifies culprit local politicians and misguided law enforcement, judicial and prosecutorial practices in IL’s other counties and cities, as well. It will also require State House and State Senate Leaders who understand the problem and propose real, not superficial, legislative violent crime solutions.

Berkowitz criticizes Speaker Welch for speaking as if he doesn’t understand the crime problems caused by the practices of Preckwinkle, Evans and Foxx. Or, more likely the Speaker just doesn’t know how to fix that situation or he is unwilling to take on powerful, fellow Democratic Party politicians.

Republican House Leader Jim Durkin proposes to repeal the so called criminal justice reform legislation passed last year, which largely compounds the violent crime problems. But Durkin has not articulated a strategic plan to repeal that legislation or otherwise deal with the violent crime problem in a legislature where Democrats have super majorities and virtually no Democrats support addressing the problem as Leader and former prosecutor Durkin would like.

Also discussed in the show is the replacement of 83 year old Supreme Court Justice Breyer, who it transpired yesterday would be giving up his Court seat (one of nine on the 6-3 or 5-4 conservative leaning Court), most likely at the end of this year’s Supreme Court term in late June.

Finally, Berkowitz and Martin discuss the role of Ken Griffin in the gubernatorial race. Griffin has a net worth of twenty one billion dollars, more than six times that of Governor Pritzker, and he already took on and beat last year Pritzker on his signature proposal: a constitutional amendment on the ballot to permit so-called “progressive income taxes” in Illinois.

It has been speculated that Griffin will finance the primary and general election campaigns of Team Irvin Bourne– and their slate for the other state-wide offices. Griffin publicly has said he will do and spend what’s necessary to make sure Pritzker is not re-elected. However, his spokesperson denies that Griffin has yet committed to any one Gov candidate to take on Pritzker.

Businessman and Gary Rabine opined to Berkowitz that a good businessman like Griffin would not commit to spending tens of million dollars on a GOP Primary Gov candidate until he has considerable evidence that such a candidate can perform well in that race, and Rabine thinks such evidence is clearly lacking.

Does Rabine think that if he, or another candidate out performs Irvin in the near future, Griffin would finance that candidate during the rest of the primary? Maybe, but this reporter didn’t hear Rabine say that just yet.