Illinoisans who don't want to watch political ads should just tune out come October 2018, radio host Patrick Hughes said on the Chicago-based "Illinois Rising" recently.
"You're not going to be able to turn on your radio or television because it's all gonna be ads," Hughes said. "I mean, there are not even gonna be TV shows, right. So if you watch 'Big Bang Theory' or whatever your show is, it's not going to be on. It's just going to be ads."
Hughes co-hosts the program with Dan Proft, a principal of Local Government Information Services, which owns this publication.
Hughes said it's clear that a lot of money is going to go into advertising for the upcoming gubernatorial campaign.
"We know this because those ads have already started," he said.
Although critical of a recent ad run by Rauner, Hughes said he appreciates the fact that the governor recognizes the need to reconnect with voters and get ahead of what he is facing,
Rauner spent millions of dollars on the ad depicting himself as a regular guy who doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty. The ad opens with Rauner wearing a plaid shirt while seated in a tool shed.
"The shirt looks more like it had just arrived from the cleaners than worn by someone who had worked all day," Hughes said.
At the time of the broadcast, Rauner’s approval ratings were suffering, and Hughes said he believes Rauner is trying to stand out against his potential opposition, which could end up being Chris Kennedy, son of Robert Kennedy, or J.B. Pritzker, a billionaire businessman, among others.
Hughes was also dismissive of a recent Pritzker ad in which he introduces himself, ostensibly to Democratic voters, Hughes said.
"It’s one of those standard, produced, out-of touch-ads, where J.B. -- who I said, as I mentioned, is a billionaire and has basically been a billionaire his entire life, right? He’s a silver spoon kid of the most epic proportions -- is walking down a street that he would never walk down," Hughes said.
Hughes described the ad as meant to connect Pritzker with the poor and middle class in Illinois.
"The last shot is of him sitting in the middle of dozens and dozens of school-age children," Hughes said. "I have an 11-year-old son, and I would not let him be in that shot if my life depended on it. But there are kids in that shot, and it’s the whole lineage of every shape and size and ethnicity ... and he's sitting in the middle of these kids, and to me, it looked kinda creepy."
But Hughes said the worst was yet to come.
"The worst part of the ad is the tagline, which is: ‘Vote for J.B. Pritzker, Democrat for governor. Fight for what’s right and getting things done,'" Hughes said. "Words that have absolutely no meaning."
In conclusion, Hughes lamented the political situation in Illinois, where, he said, the current governor wants to be a good governor but makes ads that don't work, and an opponent like Pritzker, who can't connect with regular people because he's not one of them and makes ads that say nothing.
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