CHICAGO – Valentine’s Day is still more than a month away, but Illinois’ over-taxed residents may have found their new political sweetheart.

In a recent radio interview, GOP gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner blamed Illinois’ greedy, out-of-control labor unions for the state’s chronic economic woes.

“The government union bosses, they are bribing the politician to give them unaffordable pensions, free health care, outrageous pay and benefits and they are bankrupting our state government, they are raising our taxes and they are forcing businesses out of our state and as a result we have brutally high unemployment,” Rauner said during a WGN-AM radio interview on Thursday, according to a Chicago Sun-Times blog.

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Considering that precious few politicians dare to take the public sector unions head-on like that, we wonder how many listeners cheered during Rauner’s remarks.

Big Labor had a much different reaction, of course.

Illinois Federation of Teachers President Dan Montgomery blasted Rauner’s comments as “unconscionable” and said the Republican “crossed a line” by “accusing teachers, firefighters and nurses of illegal activity.”

It would appear that Rauner, a billionaire venture capitalist, hit a union nerve with his comments. Labor leaders must be afraid that Rauner’s ideas will resonate with too many fed-up and over-taxed voters.

It’s well-reported that Illinois has the worst pension crisis in the nation. Huffington Post contributor Matthew Dietrich notes the state’s underfunded pension plan “threatens education, social services, public safety and every other area of public life.”

The WGN interview wasn’t Rauner’s first brush with the unions. He came under heavy attack for recent comments in which he suggested Illinois lawmakers should lower the minimum wage by a dollar – to mirror the federal minimum wage – as a way of keeping the state economically “competitive.”

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Rauner has walked those comments back, and now says he would support hiking the minimum wage, but only “in conjunction with reforms that lower the costs on small businesses so we don’t inadvertently hurt the people we are trying to help,” reports the Huffington Post.

According to the Sun-Times blog, “This is just the beginning of the shoving match that’s to ensue between the Rauner campaign and unions, which the businessman has waged a war against. Unions are working behind the scenes to funnel money toward an anti-Rauner TV ad campaign.”

Rauner is one of four Republicans running for that party’s gubernatorial nomination. The primary will be held on March 18, and whoever wins appears to face long odds in November. Illinois hasn’t elected a Republican governor since 1999.