Illinois Democrats and "what you wanted to hear"

When I got to the Charlotte airport at about 3 a.m. this morning, everyone else looked like zombies, too.

President Barack Obama's speech ended not many hours before, and the stray Democratic delegates trying to get an early start on their journeys home were using their remaining energy to talk about it, according to my serial eavesdropping.

We'll let the national pundits dissect that speech every which way today.

But for our purposes, one line in particular stood out and provided a nice close to the week. Obama is an Illinois Democrat facing an uncertain future in his next election - just like Gov. Pat Quinn.

In our story about Quinn to start the week, we quoted the governor about his recent rough run ins with public employees, who nearly booed him off an Illinois State Fair stage. Quinn said he was going to stick to his guns on cutting pensions and closing prisons. He explained it this way.

“You have to have a governor who’s willing to stand up to folks who yell at you, and tell them what they need to know, not what they want to hear."

Those of you listened to Obama's speech carefully Thursday night will recognize that concept.

"You didn't elect me to tell you what you wanted to hear," Obama said. "You elected me to tell the truth."

Both are trying to make the case that they inherited a mess, that mess will take a while to clean up, and cleaning it up will be hard.

Kind of interesting, we thought.