Jesse Jackson Jr. Gives Quinn Endorsement: "Hynes Has No Constructive Message"

Jesse Jackson Jr. Gives Quinn Endorsement: "Hynes Has No Constructive Message"

Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. joined Gov. Pat Quinn at a Rainbow PUSH forum Saturday and slammed Dan Hynes' recent television ads that showed former mayor Harold Washington calling Quinn his "greatest mistake" in government.

Jackson, along with other local officials, said the ad was misleading and a not constructive.

"Simply put, Hynes has no constructive message," Congressman Jackson during Saturday's Rainbow PUSH broadcast. "He has no plan for the future, no plan to improve funding or safety at our schools, no program to put people back to work. He's focusing on ancient and distorted history. So while Dan Hynes is focusing on the past, Pat Quinn is talking about the future."

Meanwhile, Quinn put out an ad calling Hynes a "desperate man" with a voice-over from Rep. Bobby Rush--who was made famous by the messy Roland Burris senate appointment just over a year ago.

Whether or not Jackson's endorsement and this recent ad will benefit Quinn remains to be seen--recent polling shows Hynes and Quinn in a statistical dead heat and his freeing of potentially violent inmates in Illinois has attracted national attention.

Rev. Jesse Jackson, father of the Illinois congressman, weighed in at the press conference as well. "In these days ahead, there will be lots and lots of mud being slung," Rev. Jackson said Saturday. "You can't block and run at the same time. Let your allies be your blockers."

Watch video of the Rainbow PUSH Forum here:

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