In late August, Gov. J.B. Pritzker, billionaire scion of one of America’s wealthiest families, sat at a folding table at City Hall in Christopher, a town of fewer than 3,000 people 300 miles south of his Gold Coast mansion.
The first term Democratic governor was meeting with a group of area mayors in a spare room whose white cinder block walls were adorned with photos from the town’s past, including one documenting a visit from Republican Gov. Frank Lowden a century earlier.
Unlike a Democratic rally the previous day at the University of Illinois, this meeting featured no talk of abortion or assault weapons, political extremism or election denial. It was all dollars and cents, roads and sewers.
