Big union ad buy for Guzzardi.

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The price of poker just went up.

A piece of interesting election news this morning is that the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) just dropped $50,000 on a media ad buy for Will Guzzardi’s race against Machine Democratic Party daughter, Toni Berrios.

Berrios has been flooding 39th Representative District mailboxes with bogus claims that Guzzardi defends child molesters.

Yep. Chicago politics. It ain’t bean bag.

But $50,000 dollars from the SEIU PAC for an Illinois State House race is big money. And a sign that the race is tight with progressive Democrat Guzzardi polling well.

On the other hand, a story in the Sun-Times this morning is that the IEA gave $50,000 to the Republican primary campaign of former ALEC state chairman Kirk Dillard.

$50,000 in a tight State Rep race is big money. $50,000 in a gubernatorial primary race is chump change. Particularly when Dillard’s opponent is billionaire Bruce Rauner. Polls have Dillard trailing Rauner big time. Early voting starts Monday with election day, March 18th.

At the time of the IEA endorsement of Dillard a long time IEA political activist friend expressed concern. Not so much about the endorsement, which he expected. But about pissing away what we thought would be a quarter million dollar contribution to a failed campaign. “We should be saving that money for the race in November against Rauner.”

I’ve been hearing and speculating all along that the Illinois labor coalition would come back to Quinn after the primary. And so maybe the chump change that the IEA is giving Dillard is the recognition that the endorsement was more symbolic than real. Last time when Dillard was running against Bill Brady the IEA tossed in $250,000 along with their Dillard recommendation. Perhaps now they are rethinking things. No point in throwing good money after bad.

I continue to shake my head at the millions of dollars that Illinois labor unions, mine included, are now spending on anti-Rauner ads. I keep thinking about what that money could have done a year ago to encourage a gubernatorial candidate who openly and aggressively sided with labor, collective bargaining, pensions and working families.

Here’s another observation.

The New York Times is reporting that the nations labor unions are prepared to spend $300 million on key races this year, focused on the issue of the minimum wage.

The slogan was first raised by President Obama in his SOTUS. “Give America a raise!”

Note to the IEA: Kirk Dillard opposes any minimum wage, let alone an increase.

And Illinois Democrats not only didn’t vote to give Illinois a raise. They voted in December to cut the income of state retirees.

Bizarro World.