Ex-Illinois Gov. Edgar (R), who backed Rauner, now slams him

Former Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar — who last year campaigned for current Gov. Bruce Rauner, a fellow Republican — comes pretty close to savaging the rookie governor in a new interview out this weekend regarding the state's budget impasse.

In the interview with the Springfield State Journal-Register, Edgar says state government is in the worst shape he's ever seen it, and he lays a big part of the blame on Rauner.

Among other things, he says, Rauner is wrong to hold the budget "hostage" over non-budgetary policy goals; that his confrontations with Democratic legislative leaders have been counter-productive and unwisely focused on "personalities"; that the impasse is having real human consequence and endangering the state's vaunted higher education tradition; and that even Rauner's stated top goal — making Illinois more business-friendly — is being thwarted by his administration's actions.

"He does not come from government," Edgar said of Rauner, a venture capitalist before winning his first-ever political campaign in November to become governor. "He doesn't even really come from mainstream business. He comes from (being an) entrepreneur where you buy a business, you tear it apart and you sell it. ... I don't think you're going to tear apart the state and sell it. He might want to, but you can't do that."

In what probably qualifies as the worst thing anyone can say about an Illinois governor these days, Edgar said Rauner's government is, in some ways, worse than the government was under now-imprisoned ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich. While Edgar stressed in the interview than Blagojevich, a Democrat, wasn't "anything close to being a better governor" than Rauner, "at least Blagojevich ... was off doing his crazy things and state government kind of continued to move along. I don't think state government's moving along right now. I mean, I just think too many things are at a standstill."