Darren Bailey’s uphill candidacy for farmers, cops and Illinoisans who feel ‘pushed aside’
DU QUOIN, Ill. — In his thick country drawl, Darren Bailey stood at a lectern clutching a microphone, trying to convince a crowd in his rural home base of southern Illinois that he speaks their language.
“I’m a farmer. This is an agricultural fair. How many farmers do I have out here with me today?” Bailey asked in late August at the Du Quoin State Fair as several people raised their hands. “All right. You guys get it … agriculture is the backbone of this nation. Agriculture is the backbone of this state. And we’re getting pushed aside. Our futures are getting pushed aside and ignored. And we must stand up and say, ‘No more.’”
A few weeks earlier, the burly Republican candidate for governor was 329 miles north at a pro-law enforcement event in a forest preserve by O’Hare International Airport. He climbed behind the wheel of a hulking, black, heavily armored SWAT vehicle for a photo op as if it were a combine on his farm back in Xenia and took a flippant swipe at his campaign rival, Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker.
“You think Pritzker knows how to turn on and shut this thing off?” Bailey joked. Shortly before that, he had cast a different tone when he led a few dozen at the event in a three-minute prayer that blamed Chicago’s persistent violence on politicians who are preventing police from doing their jobs.
“I pray for forgiveness that we have allowed our government to diminish the authority of law and order, and instead to lift up the rights of people who break the law,” Bailey told the crowd. “And I pray that soon, and very soon, that that would cease and that would end, and the men and women who serve and protect … would be lifted up.”
In his run for governor, Bailey has offered himself up as a herald for those he considers to be theoverlooked in Illinois, those he believes have been ignored, forgotten and excluded from a Chicago-driven plan
