Over at the Post-Dispatch scroll down for the audio.
In March of 2002 I ran into JJJ at Rolling Thunder, a kind of progressive carnivale of sorts put together by Jim Hightower in Austin. Jackson was there and was very good with the crowd. I ran into him at one point chowing down on corn on the cobb and said with his style he could easily run downstate if he could identify the Cornjerkers–the point being he needed to spend time downstate to get people familiar with him and show he had some interest in the whole state. He looked at me like I was crazy–not an unreasonable thing to do given the context of some random guy talking about Cornjerkers in Illinois while standing in Austin. That said, it would be a good question for the press to start with in terms of how he views the entire state of Illinois.
I think he would answer the question well, but without specifics, because he is smart, but probably has very limited downstate experience. In fact, I wouldn’t be shocked if he compared it to portions of Will south of his District, areas of which are certainly more rural that Cook Co., but of course, are not downstate.