Election messages were more mixed than assorted nuts in a can of Planters.

Union election messages got more mixed yesterday than assorted nuts in a can of Planters.

Early in the day Crain’s Greg Hinz and Capitolfax’s Rich Miller reported that the state’s union leadership were folding up their Freedom Illinois Political Action Committee tent. The PAC had raised and spent over $3 million supporting Kirk Dillard’s campaign against Bruce Rauner.

The implication that Hinz, Miller and I drew from this was that Dillard was too far behind to catch up and that there was no point in throwing good money after bad.

I reported this but followed up with a copy of a letter that AFSCME’s Henry Bayer sent out to his local presidents that they should draw no conclusions from these reports. He said that shutting down an independent funding source for a candidate’s campaign one week before the election made perfect sense. Future contributions would be checks written directly to Dillard’s campaign fund.

Later in the day IEA sent out an almost identical message to IEA members.

I got this from IEA Communications Director Charlie McBarron.

From: McBarron, Charlie
Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2014 8:39 PM
Subject: ELECTION UPDATE – Sent on behalf of IEA President Cinda Klickna (to board, staff, GPAs – please share)

Colleagues:

I wanted to update you on the election, which is now less than a week away.

I hope you’ll share this email with your colleagues, but please, only send it to home (not school) addresses of members and don’t post this this to your region or local websites.

We’re entering the final phase of this very important primary election campaign.

You might have heard that the independent expenditure campaign, which IEA and other unions helped support, has ended.

Going forward, all primary expenses for the gubernatorial campaign will go directly to the Dillard campaign which, under rules governing elections, will be able to purchase television time at a rate about half of what the independent expenditure campaign was able to do.  This greatly increases the buying power of our IPACE dollars.

We believe the independent expenditure campaign has slowed the momentum that Bruce Rauner purchased with his personal investment of more than $6 million.

We’ve seen signs, including the recent Tribune poll,<http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/clout/chi-rauner-dillard-governor-poll-20140307,0,3675788.story> that there is momentum behind our candidate, Kirk Dillard.

Rauner is ahead, but within reach. Kirk Dillard needs our support.

Here is the list of IEA/IPACE targeted legislative races:

[http://www.ieanea.org/media/2014/03/2014PrimaryRecommendations3_11_2014-262×300.jpg]<http://www.ieanea.org/media/2014/03/2014PrimaryRecommendations3_11_2014.jpg>

If you don’t see your legislative district listed above, I urge you to ask for a Republican ballot at your polling place and vote for Kirk Dillard in the Republican primary for governor. And please urge your friends and family to do  the same. Here’s a brief video on why IEA supports Kirk Dillard<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVWGcJjAiOY>.

Thank you for all you’re doing for public education and for the rights of education employees statewide. This election is of great importance to both.

It’s no secret that I disagree with the IEA endorsement of the candidate from the American Legislative Exchange Council.

On the other hand, I am grateful that they have supported local anti-penson state representative candidates like Will Guzzardi, Jay Travis and Aaron Goldstein.

And IEA members living in these city districts will now know that because Charlie has linked to the IPACE list of endorsed legislative candidates.

Just click on the link in his email.

No. Wait. It doesn’t link. Charlie McBarron, the IEA Communication Director, sent out dead link. And that was yesterday. No new communications have been received. At least by me.

Local candidates must be thrilled.

Just to help out, here is the actual list of IEA targeted races.