PEORIA, Ill. – A rumored Presidential candidate will be headlining a now sold-out event in Peoria on May 12th.
Governor Ron DeSantis (R-Florida) will be the keynote speaker at the Peoria and Tazewell County Republicans’ Lincoln Day Dinner. Around 1100 people will be in attendance at the Civic Center Ballroom.
Jim Rule is the chairman of the Tazewell County Republicans. He tells WMBD’s “Greg and Dan” that he was surprised to see DeSantis accept the invitation since he is in high-demand at the moment.
Rule says DeSantis was at the top of his list for keynote speakers. He reached out via a handwritten note that was delivered by Congress Darin LaHood (R-Dunlap) when DeSantis spoke at an event in Chicago back in January.
“And then he (LaHood) plugged us. He said, hey, Tazewell County, Peoria County, they’d love to have you, it’s all red down there, y’know we’re fighting in Peoria County a little bit,” Rule said. “So they showed some interest. And about a couple weeks later, we got a phone call. And said, hey, let’s talk.”
Rule says he does not expect DeSantis to announce his intentions to run for President next year at the dinner.
Instead, he says the focus of the speech and event will be on how to bring some of DeSantis’ successes in Florida to Illinois.
“Whether you vote for him or not as President, he has done a lot of remarkable things in Florida to combat CRT, to combat transgenderism, to combat the woke ideology,” Rule said. “And a lot of those things we have to take a look at, because we’re battling those same things in Illinois.”
Rule says trying to achieve those goals could be difficult since Democrats control the Legislature and the Governor’s office. That’s why he says change has to come at the grassroots level.
