The president’s speech is focused on how politicians can work better together.
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The first time President Obama won office was in 1996, when he was elected to the Illinois Senate.
It’s a hard dance in politics, but especially in Washington, Obama said.
In rare comments about being the country’s first black president, President Obama said some opponents have used “dog whistles” of racism against him, but his race has helped him in other ways. While he didn’t name names, Sanders, for example, has made promises like making public colleges and universities tuition free and Trump has made promises about building a wall along the US southern border and making Mexico pay for it. He flew in in for a big dose of nostalgia – on former Senate President “Pate” Philip, “so politically incorrect that you don’t even know how to describe it” was my favorite blast from the past – while calling again for a politics forgiving enough to allow for compromise.
Obama, in last month’s State of the Union address, said one of the few regrets of his presidency was that “the rancor and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better”.
Already a month into his final year in office, Obama said he wants to “create a tone” for the next president in which partisan politics pose less of an obstacle to getting things done.
“I don’t know who in Washington would look and say, ‘Hey, follow our model in Washington. I am one of the most bipartisan legislators in the general assembly”, Phelps said.
The President addressed the General Assembly nine years to the day that he spoke in Springfield to announce his run for the White House.
While the president did not harp on the budget impasse, he did say compromise is needed and bipartisanship is a must. Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, Democrats who control the Legislature, and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel have exchanged criticism – sometimes uncomfortably personal – over the state budget mess, Chicago’s schools, Rauner’s appointments and more. “We have to build a better politics”, he said.
“Where I’ve got an opportunity to find some common ground, that doesn’t make me a sell out to my own party”.
Many Democrats have been suspicious of the IL effort.
Kurt Walters, campaign manager at Rootstrikers and one of the petition’s organizers, called the response “offensive to the millions of Americans demanding an end to secret money influencing elections”.
If one group gets its way voters in IL could see a referendum on the November ballot to change redistricting methods. “And I think that’s okay”.
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City manager Wally Bobkiewicz said the lack of budget causes uncertainty about how to provide services in the future still without a budget.
