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Voters in Chicago and across the State of Illinois have been remarkably patient.
Residents of Illinois have witnessed taxes climb, utility bills surge, a crime wave, businesses and families hounded out of the state leave, and our public institutions deteriorate. Meanwhile, Democrat lawmakers continue prescribing more government, more spending, more regulation, and more poisonous progressive ideology.
At some point, an experiment which repeatedly yields the same miserable result stops being an experiment.
It becomes policy.
And Juliana Stratton has spent nearly eight years helping administer it.
Far from an outsider, Stratton isn’t a candidate determined to shake things up. She has served alongside Governor JB Pritzker as lieutenant governor since 2019.
Now Stratton wants a promotion to Washington, D.C.
No thanks.
Chicago Contrarian endorses Republican Don Tracy for the United States Senate.
Our endorsement of Mr. Tracy is irrelevant to party loyalty. Those who read this publication fully grasp we have little patience for Republicans who consider the “R” after their name as an actual accomplishment.
Rather, this election and our endorsement of Mr. Tracy is related to something increasingly exotic in American politics: Real-world experience and basic competence.
A native of Mount Sterling, Illinois, Don Tracy is the eldest of 12 children and part of a successful family business. He is a practicing attorney who has stood on the side of families and small businesses in the court room. Tracy understands what Illinoisans are struggling with because he has lived it. He has signed the front of a paycheck, and understands the sacrifice and hard work that come with running a business.
Outside of his family-owned enterprise, Tracy and his wife Wanda have raised four children. With deep roots in Illinois, Tracy has spent most of his adult life contending with the agonizing consequences of suffocating government regulation rather than dreaming up new ways to impose it.
As former chairman of the Illinois Republican Party, Tracy also knows politics without having made politics his entire identity.
Most importantly, Tracy understands something Chicago and Springfield politicians seem determined to forget:
Math still matters.
Government cannot indefinitely spend money it doesn't have. Businesses cannot absorb higher taxes, higher energy costs, and more burdensome regulations without consequences. Families cannot keep paying more for housing, groceries, utilities, and taxes without eventually deciding they've had enough.
Eventually, businesses leave, families leave, and the bill arrives.
Illinois is paying that bill now.
Stratton represents a continuity of the socialist governing philosophy which produced it: Government first, taxpayers second; and ideology before economic reality.
Tracy offers something, perhaps, less fashionable, but considerably more useful:
Common sense.
Lower taxes. A better climate for employers. Responsible spending. Secure borders. Support for law enforcement. Tracy also tenders the apparently radical notion that economic growth comes from people willing to risk their own money, build businesses, and create jobs rather than another government program.
Will we agree with Don Tracy on all of his policy positions?
Certainly not.
We'd be deeply suspicious if we did.
Nevertheless, Illinois doesn't need another senator chasing activist approval, genuflecting to political correctness, or treating every public-policy question as an ideological purity test.
The State of Illinois is calling for a candidate who understands how the world outside politics actually works.
And Chicago desperately needs political competition.
For far too long, Democrats have taken Chicago voters for granted while Republicans have largely written them off. That arrangement has served politicians very well.
It has not served the best interests of Chicago.
So on November 3rd, don't just complain about Illinois.
Vote.
Talk to your neighbors. Talk to the people at work. Talk to the friend who says politics doesn't matter because “nothing ever changes.”
Then get them to the polls.
Juliana Stratton is running on taking the country down the same path she’s taken Illinois, and it has had catastrophic consequences for the State of Illinois.
Don Tracy offers an alternative.
Vote Don Tracy for U.S. Senate … and bring somebody with you.
