A humbled Gov. Bruce Rauner is promising a different kind of governor in a second term.
The Republican campaigned Thursday in Chicago with an address that was part apologia and part stump speech.
"I'm a better governor now than when I took office because of what I've learned," Rauner said.
He faces J.B. Pritzker in a difficult re-election campaign.
The speech was a rare acknowledgement by Rauner of his weaknesses in taking office in 2015.
Rauner said he was mistaken to demand an all-or-nothing conservative agenda in exchange for a state budget. What followed was a two-year standoff with Democrats that cost billions of dollars in debt and devastated social services and other programs.
Pritzker called it a "desperate speech" by a failed governor who spent years refusing to compromise.
“Bruce Rauner’s problem isn’t that he had too much courage, it’s that he spent four years refusing to compromise, hellbent on forcing his radical agenda on our state no matter the collateral damage,” said Pritzker.
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