Rauner win would be blow to democracy

Your choice of Rauner for governor was certainly no ringing endorsement. Let's start with headline, "offers best hope for needed change?" Really? You admit in first paragraph the fiscal mess has been over a decade in the making and is not Quinn's fault, yet you choose someone with no discernible fiscal plan to fix the mess.

Everyone in this state knows the "change we need" is in the speaker of the House position.

Not wishing Mike Madigan any ill fortune, and knowing he will never lose his seat in an election, the only answer is for the Democratic majority to get together with the Republican minority and change the term limits of the leadership rolls in the General Assembly.

It will take political courage, but it really is the only solution. Republican state representatives have gotten lazy, blaming everything that befalls the state on the speaker.

You write of Illinois' reputation as a corrupt state, but offer no evidence that the reputation is deserved or due to anything Quinn has done over his six years.

Nor do you offer any reasons why you think Rauner will change the state's reputation.

Here is what a Rauner win will mean to the state and the country. It will prove that money is more powerful than our votes. It will prove that only millionaires shoveling money into their own campaigns, with billionaire backers like Ken Griffin, can win elections.

A Rauner win is a nail in the coffin of democracy, and your endorsement is providing a hammer.

Diane Niesman

Wheaton