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By DOUG E. IBENDAHL • June 16, 2022
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Could a person who hates Donald Trump actually become the Illinois GOP nominee this month for the state’s top constitutional office? Surely such a bizarre outcome isn’t possible, even in a messed-up state like Illinois.
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And note I said “Trump hater” – as in a notch above just your typical clueless Never-Trumper.
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Unfortunately, the answer to my initial question is YES, it most certainly could happen.
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Richard Irvin is that Trump hater. We know this because in 2018 Irvin himself said he hated Donald Trump in a text conversation he was having with a retired city employee, a man Irvin was friendly with at the time.
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Later in that same text conversation, Irvin clarified his stance to say: “And although I don’t hate Trump the man, I do hate what he stands for.”
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Irvin also called President Trump an “idiot” and a “bigoted racist.”
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As I noted before, as dishonest as Irvin has proven himself to be, even he hasn’t tried to deny hurling those vile insults. Irvin can’t deny it because a respected media outlet did its due diligence and indisputably proved the texts and words are his.
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But of even more concern, Irvin has never attempted to say he was wrong about Trump in 2018. Needless to say, he’s never apologized for repeating the same demonstrably false and obnoxious propaganda spewed by the sickest Democrats and most corrupt journos.
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Richard Irvin still refuses to say whether or not he voted for Trump in 2016 or 2020. WELL OF COURSE HE DIDN’T. Someone who wrongly believes Trump is an “idiot” and a “racist” obviously isn’t voting for Trump.
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And oh yeah, on top of that, there’s the well documented fact that Richard Irvin is a career Democrat and a very left-wing one at that. Some, including Darren Bailey, also add that Irvin is a CORRUPT Democrat, and there is at least some solid evidence to support that allegation.
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So bottom line, Irvin is just insulting our intelligence when he refuses to man-up and simply admit the obvious, that he’s never voted for Donald Trump, in any election.
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It’s actually getting difficult to think of anything Richard Irvin HAS been honest about. Democrat Irvin has spent much of this campaign (and millions of dollars from the rich white guy who assumes he’ll control the new Black governor) lying about and smearing actual Republicans.
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Look, I think we can all agree that Republicans are perfectly fine with some rough-and-tumble in a GOP primary. But when a Trump-hating career Democrat fills mailboxes and airwaves with the preposterous lie that Darren Bailey is the Democrat in this race, it’s just way, way too much for decent people – which most Republicans certainly are.
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It’s disappointing that anyone who purports to be a Republican is standing by Irvin’s fraudulent campaign. It’s long past time we stopped calling those people “the establishment.” That’s far too complimentary of a word, and one which implies they’ve actually built anything or accomplished anything positive.
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Call them failures, call them Democrat enablers, call them Never-Trumpers (many of them), or just simply my preferred term, trash.
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These people still have the nerve to lecture us: “Irvin has the best chance of beating Pritzker in November, don’t you want to win?”
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Okay, first, let’s put aside the obvious question of why would a majority of Illinois voters ever choose Democrat Irvin over Democrat Pritzker who despite his awful leadership is at least honest enough to keep the D by his name.
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The bigger question is how exactly do we “win” by nominating a proven liar, a person even willing to tell the craziest lies about principled Republicans?
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It doesn’t matter what a liar says. It doesn’t matter what a liar promises to do. Why? Well, because they lie, that’s why.
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Would a Governor Irvin govern as the leftist Democrat he’s been his entire public career, or, would he now, all of a sudden, be more pro-business because his rich hedge-fund puppet master tells him to be?
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Anyone who claims they know the answer with any certainty is about as honest as Richard Irvin. Because the fact is we can’t know. Trying to predict what a guy like Irvin might do in the future is a total crapshoot since he doesn’t appear to have any firm principles beyond a desire to ensure his own political survival.
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The good news is the Republican rank-and-file have been paying attention. Despite all of the lies and character assassination attempts by the Irvin camp (or maybe because of it), Irvin has been plummeting in all of the polling of Republican voters.
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The problem is with 5 candidates in the race splitting the “well yeah, we probably should nominate a Republican for the top Republican job” vote, Richard Irvin could still squeak by and win this month. We can’t deny the millions and millions of dollars spent by Irvin dishonestly smearing his top challengers has no doubt fooled a lot of good Republicans, and someone could realistically win this primary with a plurality of 30% of the vote, or actually, in theory at least, even less.
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Just imagine the disgrace if we have to go the rest of the year to November with a Trump-hating Democrat leading the Republican ticket. It’s insanity, not to mention boring waiting for the inevitable General Election disaster, yet another year where the GOP does great nationally but blows it in Illinois.
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So, to my fellow Trump supporters, I say to you it’s time to flex our muscles. Let’s make history by defeating the latest horrible candidate the failed old guard is trying to shove down our throats.
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Donald Trump received 2,446,891 votes in Illinois in November 2020. That was 300,876 more votes than he garnered here in 2016. (By comparison, “moderate” Mitt Romney received only 2,135,216 votes here in 2012).
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And keep in mind, Trump expanded the base in Illinois with basically zero help from the Illinois Republican Party. Few party officials lifted a finger for Trump’s campaign, there was scarcely a speedbump erected to Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden blowing out the state. That’s why Chicago Democrats were free to travel to Wisconsin where they helped flip the Land of Cheese to Blue in 2020.
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The Never-Trump wing of the Illinois GOP is with Richard Irvin — that observation can’t be seriously disputed. I certainly won’t say there are no Trump supporters in the Irvin camp, because I’m sure there are, misguided though they may be. But it’s hard to imagine a significant number of true Trump supporters sticking with a guy who views Donald Trump in the same nasty way as CNN.
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Here’s one last thing to think about. Those 2,446,891 votes Trump received in November 2020 were only a little less than the 2,479,746 votes JB Pritzker received in November 2018 when he slaughtered “the establishment’s” previous Never-Trump disaster, “moderate” Bruce Rauner.
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And yes, I know, a lot more people always vote in presidential years than in gubernatorial years, but the numbers are still the numbers.
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I do wish the 5 actual Republicans in the race would work together better. I think it’s fair to say there are at least 2 (and probably 3) of those 5 who have no realistic chance of winning the nomination on June 28. But I’m sure they’re looking at the high “undecided” number in the polls and hoping for a miracle. And that’s fair. I don’t begrudge them.
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It shouldn’t matter how many Republicans stay in this race — as long as Trump supporters educate their fellow Trump supporters about Richard Irvin in the time we have left.
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Trump supporters now dominate the GOP in Illinois, just like in most if not every other state – at least in numbers.
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But it won’t mean a thing if the same old pointless mediocrities get yet another of their anti-Trumpers installed as the head of the Illinois Republican Party – which is exactly what the GOP nominee for governor effectively becomes on the morning of June 29 once the votes are counted.
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So let’s make history. Let’s do something on June 28 that Republicans and conservatives in Illinois were never able to accomplish on a significant scale pre-Trump. Let’s tell “the establishment” do-nothings, the Never-Trumpers, the pointless titleholders – the trash – that they are done disrespecting Republican voters in Illinois.
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We do that by defeating their latest sham offering, Richard Irvin. And the more resounding that defeat the better.
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Doug Ibendahl is a Chicago Attorney and a former General Counsel of the Illinois Republican Party.
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