Brown: Rauner needs better duct tape

Follow @MarkBrownCSTBy now most of you have probably seen Gov. Bruce Rauner’s commercials in which he slams “Springfield politicians” for their “duct tape solutions” to Illinois’ problems.

Rauner is spending more than $1 million on the campaign, which means if you haven’t seen it yet, he’s not getting his money’s worth.

Personally, I’m offended.

Not by Rauner running campaign ads nearly two years out from the election. Nor by Rauner’s attack on “the politicians that got us into this mess.”

That’s just politics, and there’s probably even some truth to that part of the commercial, even if he’s just made matters worse.

Follow @MarkBrownCSTWhat bothers me is Rauner’s clear lack of respect for duct tape.

Duct tape is one of man’s greatest inventions, right up there with the wheel and WD-40.

As any God-fearing American knows, duct tape helped save the lives of Tom Hanks and the rest of the Apollo 13 crew after they needed to jerry-rig an air filtration canister to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning on the trip back to Earth.

You’d better believe they were fans of “duct tape solutions.”

Beyond that, duct tape is an essential tool for any everyman homeowner who doesn’t have the do-re-mi to hire a repairman for every little thing that goes wrong around a house.

True, a guy who owns a nifty workshop like the one seen in Rauner’s commercial might have the know-how to make a proper repair.

I can pretty much assure you Rauner is not that guy.

Heck, that’s not even his workshop shown in the commercial with everything spic-and-span and all the tools in their proper place.

A spokesman for the Illinois Republican Party confirmed the workshop belongs to one of Rauner’s supporters.

And while it may be true Rauner is more comfortable in those flannel shirts that he wears for campaignin’ than in business attire, I doubt he knows his way around those drill presses visible in the background any more than I would.

My wife would be the first to tell you I’m not the handiest guy around the house either. And she only wishes I’d kept my workbench as neat as the one in the commercial.

I gave up the workbench and most of my power tools when we sold the house last year. But you’d better believe I brought the duct tape to the new condo.

Rauner may not remember one of the first pieces of advice from George W. Bush’s Department of Homeland Security was to stock up on duct tape in preparation for a possible terrorist attack.

That’s when I first became aware of the Duct Tape Guys, a handyman comedy duo who taught me the one rule that can get you through life: “If it ain’t stuck, and it’s supposed to be, duct tape it.”

Duct Tape Guy Tim Nyberg reviewed the Rauner commercials for me and was similarly struck by the governor’s failure to recognize the power of duct tape.

“By the way, that tape he’s using is horribly cheap,” Nyberg noted. “You can hear by the way it comes off the roll. Spare the tape and spoil the job we say.”

I detected a similar problem in the 15-second version of the ad in which Rauner appears to pull tape off the camera lens to reveal, surprise, his smiling face: the tape comes off way too easily for duct tape.

It looks more like masking tape.

Plus, there wasn’t nearly enough tape on there in the first place. I always say there’s nothing that can be fixed with duct tape that can’t be fixed even better with more duct tape.

Sound advice from the Duct Tape Guys: “You’ve got plenty of money, Governor Rauner, go out and buy some better duct tape, then you’ll see the truth in ‘It ain’t broke, it just lacks duct tape.’”

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