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Rauner Answers (Some) Questions, Live On Facebook

Amanda Vinicky

 Gov. Bruce Rauner took to social media Tuesday to answer Illinois residents' questions in real time ... some of them, anyway.

The governor says he uses Google Hangout to video chat with his kids, but it was his first time trying Facebook Live.

"How you doing? Welcome to our first ever Facebook Live. This is going to be fun and interesting," he said at the start.

What made it interesting was that anyone watching on Facebook could write under the video feed with a question or comment, in real time. Plenty of people offered their kudos: telling him to keep up the good work.

Disgruntled voters responded with an angry face emoji, and accused Rauner of using scripted answers and planted questions. One person called him a "fake."

He touched on some of his common themes like term limits, pensions, the budget, Illinois' business climate, but didn't get into real detail. He also used the opportunity to announce the formation of a new state office and commission charged with planning Illinois' 2018 bicentennial celebrations.

Twenty-six minutes later, it was done.

But Rauner's first experiment on Facebook Live may not be his last.

"It's an opportunity to have dialogue and answer questions, talk about the issues going on in the state," he said. "I hope to do this regularly going forward if this works for you all, we can get all important topics. I look forward to doing it on a pretty regular basis. Should be good."

Amanda Vinicky moved to Chicago Tonight on WTTW-TV PBS in 2017.
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