Republican gubernatorial candidate Judy Baar
Topinka is somewhere in the middle on abortion issues. Because of
that, both extremes hate her. Last week, Planned Parenthood and the
pro-choice group Personal PAC held a press conference to urge
reporters to find out whether Topinka is pro-choice. The groups
claim that she has flip-flopped all over the issue, a battle cry
that the anti-abortion side will almost surely take up as its own. To help prove their point that she is a
flip-flopper, the groups released votes on a bill from 1981. Back then, Topinka was in the Legislature,
and a parental-consent bill was introduced. Topinka voted with
Planned Parenthood on one amendment, voted with the anti-abortion
side on a different amendment, and then voted “present”
on the bill itself. Those votes were described in a way that made
it look as if she voted on all sides of the legislation when, in
reality, she was voting on individual issues. That sort of stuff happens all the time in
Springfield, of course. But it shows what sort of challenges lie
ahead for Topinka and how far the groups will go in attacking her.
Neither side, each highly organized, experienced, and well funded,
will run to her defense on abortion when the other attacks.
According to Planned Parenthood, Topinka voted “against
reproductive choice” 79 percent of the time. Topinka supports
the landmark Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, however. In other words,
she’s far too “pro-life” for the choicers and too
pro-choice for the right-to-lifers.
Jim Thompson, Jim Edgar, and Rod Blagojevich
are all very pro-choice. Edgar was even endorsed by the National
Abortion Rights Action League when he ran for governor the first
time. George Ryan had it both ways because his legislative record
was anti-abortion enough for the pro-lifers and much more
“reasonable” to the pro-choicers than his hardcore
anti-abortion Democratic opponent, Glenn Poshard. If Topinka makes it
out of the primary, she’ll be in uncharted waters. We
haven’t had a truly middle-ground candidate on this issue in a
long time. Making it out of the primary, of course, is
the first task at hand. And that pro-choice press conference was a
sign of interesting times ahead. Until recently, the governor and his campaign
adamantly refused to comment about any attacks by announced
Republican gubernatorial candidates — and then Topinka
stepped into the race. A Blagojevich campaign spokesperson held an
impromptu press conference shortly after Topinka’s formal
announcement to attack Topinka for being part of the deficit
problem that Blagojevich inherited from George Ryan. The spokesman
ignored questions about the governor’s ethics and tried to
keep the focus on the budget.
That unusual press conference came after the
pro-choice press conference the previous day. Then the governor himself got into the
action, telling Chicago’s WLS (Channel 7) news that Topinka
was part of the reason for the deficit he’d inherited. I think we’ll see more of this in the
coming weeks for two reasons. The first is obvious: Blagojevich and
everyone else figure that Topinka is his most likely opponent, and
they’re going to respond right away to any attacks before
they have a chance to sink in with voters. The second is less obvious, but it’s
something I’ve been talking about with people for many months:
Columnist Russ Stewart (www.russstewart.com) beat me to the punch
the other day with the same sort of analysis. The idea may be to
try to weaken Topinka enough in the primary that she actually loses
and Blagojevich ends up with a hard-right opponent, which would
allow him to change the subject from corruption and competence to
ideology. Former Democratic Gov. Gray Davis did this
well in California, spending millions in the GOP primary and
helping an ultraconservative Republican defeat a moderate
candidate, then winning in November. I wouldn’t rule out the chance that at
least one and maybe more of the governor’s interest group
allies will run ad campaigns attacking Topinka before primary day,
with the governor weighing in occasionally himself. And even if Topinka doesn’t lose the
primary, a nasty spring proxy attack would help soften her up for
the fall’s general election, when the third-party attacks
will almost surely intensify. A similar strategy worked last year
when groups such as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth undermined
Democratic presidential contender Sen. John Kerry in key
battleground states with their outrageous claims.
This article appears in Dec 8-14, 2005.
