Richard Irvin Campaign Goes from Bad to Petty and Unprofessional
Staffers from GOP gubernatorial candidate Richard Irvin’s campaign physically restrained The Illinoize from questioning Irvin at a campaign event Thursday night.
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OPINION
A couple of caveats to start with. First, I do not want to make myself the story here. I’m not always the most pleasant and sunshine-filled person to work with, but since starting this newsletter, I've tried my best to be fair to every single politician, candidate, staffer, and reader. I also don’t consider myself a “reporter.” I used to be a reporter in which I kept my politics to myself and never put opinions in my work product. This newsletter is different than that. I do include some opinions, and I write a political column (which is opinion) in Shaw Media newspapers. I’m hardly the only political writer in Illinois that does that.
Secondly, I don’t have a bias against Richard Irvin. I don’t dislike Richard Irvin. We spoke our first words to each other last night. I’ve written a lot about his highly funded, aggressive, and often fact-free campaign. I stand by every word.
Irvin held a number of early voting rallies around the state yesterday that were provided to media. The advisory did not alert the event was closed press and did not say there would not be a media availability.
So, in light of the Chicago Tribune story Wednesday that Irvin promised to have charges against his then-girlfriend “taken care of” after she was arrested for assaulting a security guard at a marijuana dispensary, it seemed like a good time to give Irvin the opportunity to address the issue.
I attended his event in Lockport last night. When Irvin arrived, I texted his press person asking for two minutes after his speech. She did not respond. (As I’ve previously mentioned, his campaign stopped responding to my phone calls or text messages in February shortly after we ran a story that some Republicans questioned Irvin’s party credentials.)
After his event ended and he took photos with supporters, I stopped Irvin before he left the room and asked if he had a moment. He said “absolutely,” before a staffer cut him off, grabbing him by the shoulder saying “no, we can’t.” I’m not someone that just gives up, so I followed Irvin through the door staff took him and began taking him up a staircase. As I began to follow, a staffer stopped in his tracks and jutted his rear end out at me like a reverse basketball screen. He blocked my way and restrained me from moving up the stairs. I shouted a couple of questions at Irvin and, just like that, he was gone.
It was an inappropriate, petty, and unprofessional way to handle a member of the media. If you’re asking to be the Republican nominee for Governor, you have a responsibility to voters to take questions from the media. Add the fact that I’m a center-right newsletter and opinion writer and they certainly have no excuse.
Counting the 2022 cycle, I’ve covered at least 16 gubernatorial campaigns dating back to 2006 and nothing like this has ever happened, not even with the Blagojevich campaign. (Though a State Trooper did move me out of the way when I blocked the door to Blagojevich’s bus back in 2007 or so.)
I give the Pritzker administration a really hard time because his official office is very difficult to work with. They don’t respond to our inquiries and haven’t for more than a year. (His campaign is significantly easier to work with, for the record.) But every time I have attended one of the Governor’s press events, he takes my questions and responds to them. He’s been known to take a few shots at me along the way, but at least he stands there and takes it. And I try to show him the respect he deserves as the Governor of our state.
If the Irvin campaign is afraid of answering difficult questions, then they had better wait for Chicago TV cameras looking for blood are chasing him down a busy Chicago street three weeks before Election Day. I’m just a newsletter writer with a few thousand subscribers.
Irvin has a lot of questions to answer if Republicans should make him their nominee for Governor. If he is unwilling to stand up and answer those questions, he doesn’t deserve to be the nominee.
The dodging, obfuscating, and unprofessional actions of his media team and campaign need to end today. Or else, every single Republican should reject him in June.
