It's Been Five Years and So Much Has Changed
Governor JB Pritzker speaks at a COVID-19 news conference in March, 2020. (Photo: Chicago Tribune)
NOTE: This story was originally posted for subscribers only. To receive subscriber-only newsletters and content, click here.
OPINION
I was not paying any attention to Governor Pritzker’s COVID press briefings that had become a daily occurrence in mid-March of 2020.
I was working my tail off on a Republican congressional primary campaign that covered a large swatch of central and southern Illinois, where we were desperately trying to get an underfunded, reasonable long shot across the finish line against an unqualified, out-of-touch, clueless Freedom Caucus wannabe who had as much business in Congress as I did on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition.
The first time I took COVID seriously was on March 12, when the Big Ten Tournament was cancelled. A few hours later, the whole NCAA Tournament was cancelled. I had TV ads scheduled throughout the weekend and began scrambling to reschedule them before the election the following Tuesday.
It was the very next day, Friday the 13th, that I received a text from another campaign associate that said “holy s*it, Pritzker is closing the schools.”
Governor Pritzker had announced he was closing schools beginning Tuesday, March 17 through the end of March (which wound up being extended much, much longer.)
That’s when things got very real.
If you’ve never worked a campaign, you don’t realize how all consuming it is. So our conversations were less about “wow, I hope nobody dies” and more about “holy crap, how do we still get through the next few days?”
There were rumors out there that Governor Pritzker would delay the election. That’s a particularly frightening thought when your campaign is out of money with five days before the election. After multiple conversations with lawyers, we determined the Governor had no authority to cancel or move an election, so we proceeded.
Most in-person campaign events that weekend had gotten cancelled and we stopped door knocking (though we did lit drops), which felt like the quietest, weirdest final weekend in electoral history.
That Sunday afternoon, we were at the candidate’s house in Vermilion County when we received word Pritzker was closing bars and restaurants beginning Monday evening. The night before St. Patrick’s Day. Things were reaching a new level. I think I was still more annoyed than afraid or concerned, but you knew something big was about to happen.
It was the strangest, weirdest, most Twilight Zone Election Day I’ve ever seen. Polling places were empty, there was no buzz, and, in the end, we got creamed. I walked back into my hotel in Danville that night with a strange feeling. A feeling that where we’re going would pale in comparison to what we’ve already seen.
The next week, Pritzker issued his stay at home order and the global pandemic was upon us. We did our part, kept our distance, picked up our groceries from the curb, didn’t get haircuts, hardly saw family for months, and got through it.
Governor Pritzker did some things right, especially in the early days, and did some things wrong, especially as the pandemic dragged on. President Trump did a lot of things wrong but a few important things right (like Operation Warp Speed.)
We had a baby in November of 2021 and didn’t contract COVID until the summer of 2022. So many people weren’t so lucky.
The world today feels so much different. It doesn’t feel like we every truly reconnected with each other after the world forced us apart. Maybe we never will. Maybe we’re more callused, maybe we’re meaner, maybe we’re just more skeptical. But life is so much different today.
Oh, and by the way, I was totally right about that totally unqualified, clueless candidate. Who was it? Congresswoman Mary Miller (R-Hindsboro), of course.
