Chance Of GOP Governor Hopefuls Answering Tough Questions Is Debatable

CHICAGO — When all six Republican candidates for Illinois governor take the stage together for the first time on Thursday night on ABC7, here's hoping we can skip the same ol' questions, including but not limited to:

"Did you vote for Trump?"

"Does Trump make you happy or sad?"

"How much Trump could a Trump trump, if a Trump could trump a Trump?"

Maybe forum moderator Alan Krashesky, ABC political reporter Craig Wall and Univision Chicago's Erika Maldonado could throw in a few more-timely questions to GOP hopefuls Darren Bailey, Richard Irvin, Gary Rabine, Paul Schimpf, Max Solomon and Jesse Sullivan.

Such as: How many assault rifles do you own, and why?

How many times have you ridden on public transit in the last five years?

Do you have Black or Latino friends? Have they ever been inside your house?

OK, maybe that's too blunt for a local TV news debate.

But voters deserve answers to real-world questions that the candidates aren't prepared to answer, like this one: How do you actually plan to accomplish any part of your agenda when the Republican Party holds fewer than 38 percent of seats in the General Assembly and currently claims 18 of 50 state senators?

So much of the GOP primary has been focused on partisan issues and identity politics — partly due to the efforts of the Democratic Governors Association, which is financially backed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker.

Voters have been bombarded with social media slurs and TV attack ads that tell us nothing substantial about how the candidates plan to stop crime and lower taxes, while painting rivals as phonies, liars and worse.

I'm hoping that Thursday's TV debate helps us find out things we don't already know, including if any of the governor candidates (besides Bailey) will admit to toting a semi-automatic rifle on special occasions.

The contents of a candidate's gun cabinet seems like information the public has a right to know in the wake of last week's Texas school massacre.

How many of these candidates has tried to understand the needs of people who depend on public transit?

Are any of them comfortable talking about the impact race has on their everyday lives?

I'd feel better if Craig Wall asked the Republican out-of-towners why Chicagoans should trust them to help fix real problems facing the city that fuels Illinois' economy and subsidizes state government spending downstate.

When the six candidates take the stage in Chicago on Thursday night, each of them should be asked: "Do you believe Chicago is a 'hellhole'?' If so, why the hell are you running for Illinois governor?"

Mark Konkol, recipient of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting, wrote and produced the Peabody Award-winning series "Time: The Kalief Browder Story." He was a producer, writer and narrator for the "Chicagoland" docuseries on CNN and a consulting producer on the Showtime documentary "16 Shots.

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