Progress Illinois

Talk about getting damned by faint praise.

Here's how the editorial board at the influential Springfield newspaper, the State-Journal Register, describes GOP gubernatorial candidate State Sen. Bill Brady's plan (or non-plan, really) for addressing the state's massive fiscal crisis:

Brady has given us no indication that he understands the scale of this state’s financial trouble. His plan amounts to waving a magic wand and hoping for a return to 1996.

We can only hope that maybe, as a Republican governor, Brady will manage to stir enough across-the-aisle cooperation to break the stalemate that finds Illinois in a deep hole and sinking fast.

And those two paragraphs, believe it or not, were the parting shot in an editorial that endorses Brady's bid for governor. Other jabs in the piece: "We’re far from confident that Brady will fare better [than Quinn] as governor," and "Despite 17 years in the legislature, Brady claims he does not know enough about the state budget to outline what he would cut." The editorial also praises departed Department of Corrections chief Michael Randle; Brady called for his firing earlier this year.

This kind of non-endorsing endorsement of Brady for governor is becoming something of a trend. The Rockford Register Star editorial board acknowledged their support for Brady was "not a ringing endorsement" and criticized his use of "cliches" in talking about the state budget mess.

A shorter Brady endorsement could perhaps be written like this: Sen. Cotton Candy's magic fiscal wand will produce magic beans that will fix the state's fiscal crisis.