Mike Madigan — he’s just like us!
He smiles while reading picture books to ethnically diverse groups of schoolchildren; he wears open-necked flannel shirts of varying patterns; he shares a chuckle on a brisk winter’s morning with a group of young professional women; and, it seems, there’s nothing — nothing — he enjoys more than a friendly cup of coffee with his constituents.
At least, that’s the cuddly face the long-serving Illinois House speaker is projecting on a new-look website. The rebranding exercise appears to be a response to several years of well-funded advertising by Republicans that paint Madigan as the dour, calculating root of all of the state’s problems (Gov. Bruce Rauner last week committed $4.45 million to the GOP’s “2018 Madigan Retirement Plan”).
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Madigan, of course, has typically shunned the limelight, a move that has arguably made it easier for his opponents to define him. His new website attempts to position him in the vanguard of progressive politics.
“Michael Madigan is standing against the Trump-Rauner agenda, and standing up for progressive change,” it states. “He is fighting to protect funding for health care and other essential services by demanding millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share.”
But Madigan spokesman Steve Brown told Inc. the new site is “just an extension of years of contact with constituents. Think of it as an electronic knock on the door.”
Voters will have to decide whether they find Madigan’s attempts at folksiness any more convincing than those of his nemesis Rauner, whose down-home shtick includes wearing a Casio wristwatch and a Carhartt jacket, and droppin’ his “g’s.”
Twitter @kimjnews
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