Darren Bailey Isn't Serious
Former state senator and 2022 GOP gubernatorial nominee Darren Bailey at a news conference on the southern border in Texas Monday. (Screenshot: Blueroom Stream)
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OPINION
Former State Senator and 2022 GOP gubernatorial nominee Darren Bailey is being vastly outspent by Congressman Mike Bost (R-Murphysboro) in their 12th Congressional District primary.
What did Bailey do to change the narrative with voters?
He didn’t buy a slew of TV ads or make a blitz on local radio. He flew to Eagle Pass, TX for a livestreamed news conference from the U.S.-Mexico border.
Bailey, along with Rep. Blaine Wilhour (R-Beecher City), complained about the Biden administration’s pause of the Trump-backed border fence, though where they were standing a few feet from the epicenter of much of the border controversy, looks like this.
None of the TV stations in the Carbondale-Cape Girardeau-Paducah market picked up the story. Neither did The Southern Illinoisan. One station in the Champaign-Decatur-Springfield market picked it up and the Effingham newspaper put the story behind a paywall.
Not a great return on investment when you’re chasing an incumbent who has a 12:1 cash lead over you.
So, did Bailey lay out a thoughtful, detailed vision for immigration policy that directly impacts the people of the southern Illinois district he hopes to represent?
Nah.
Instead, he complained politicians are choosing “politics over protection” on the same day his beloved former President Donald Trump essentially tanked a bipartisan border security bill that would limit the number of asylum seekers accepted into the country and would give President Biden the authority to close the border if migrant crossings spike. (It’s a bill that certainly doesn’t solve the problem and doesn’t do anything to curb the spike in illegal border crossings, but it is a start.)
His policy outlines weren’t particularly grand: finish the border wall, “enforce our laws,” whatever the heck that means, assuming, I guess, asylum isn’t one law he cares about, and immediately “closing the border.” Closing the border, by the way, would strand countless American tourists in Cancun and would cut off shipping lanes for billions of dollars in goods and produce (not to mention the corn and soybeans produced on Bailey’s farm.)
Bailey has now been in the public arena in the state since 2017, running for House in 2018, Senate in 2020, Governor in 2022, and now Congress in 2024.
Can you name any policy or legislative achievement he’s championed? He’s solely hung his hat on court cases challenging emergency mask rules when the world was imploding in 2020.
But that doesn’t stop Bailey from desperately spinning lies.
Monday, he claimed Bost voted for “amnesty” for 1.8 million illegal or undocumented immigrants, though it was a 2018 Trump proposal to provide a pathway to citizenship for so-called “Dreamers” who were brought to the U.S. as children.
Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good line.
Bost took a whack at Bailey late Monday.
“Unlike my opponent, who hastily planned a meaningless publicity stunt at the border because we’re one month from an election, I’ve always viewed border security as a top priority,” Bost said, noting he’s been to Eagle Pass twice in ten months.
Bailey proves time and time again he’s not ready for prime time. His platitudes are hollow, he has no serious solutions to serious problems, and his folksy-farmer twang tries to make his lack of seriousness appear charming.
Now we’ll see if voters want serious or not.
