McHenry Times

Gubernatorial candidate Gary Rabine leads his GOP rivals in raising campaign funds.

Hopeful to make Illinois the best state in the country, the Bull Valley businessman kicked off his “Paving the way to stay” campaign in late March. He is proud to have raised the most campaign contributions so far.

“Did you see the news? ‘Among Pritzker’s current Republican rivals, suburban businessman Gary Rabine raised the most, pulling in $344,921.74 during the quarter, twice the $165,455.92 that GOP rival Darren Bailey raised,’” Rabine posted on Facebook.

Recently, he reiterated his promise to work hard “to compete everyday for our state to deliver customer service to our citizens in these and other categories like never before.”

“Our state, Illinois, is not the competitive state it once was,” he said. "We are not competing when it comes to job creation, property taxes and positive family culture as we once did.”

Rabine is focused on rebuilding the state back to what it was before or even better.

“Fifteen years ago in Illinois, we really were the best place in the middle of the country to create jobs and start a business, to grow a business,” he told the Chicago Sun-Times in an interview between his campaign kick-off events. “But over the last 15 years, that’s deteriorated to being the worst.”

Banking on his experiences running his group of companies which he started four decades ago, Rabine said he feels his experiences uniquely make him the man for the job. As a seasoned businessman and leader, he said he understands how to attract jobs to the state, Rock Island Today reported.

He said Illinois has become one of the worst states to conduct business and has one of the country’s worst policies on workers’ compensation.

Rabine said other states don't have the problems Illinois has, like high taxes and low property values.