Now that the state’s political season is
about to kick into a slightly higher gear, let’s take a
moment to look at how some of the Republican candidates for
governor stack up. We’ll look at the rest of the pack next
week.
State Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka —
Her supporters say that her ideological moderation and tough fiscal
record make her the most electable Republican against Gov. Rod
Blagojevich. Although she leads both Blagojevich and her GOP
opponents in every recent poll, she doesn’t do as well with
Republican primary voters as she should, considering her long
statewide tenure.
Topinka will have enough money to compete
against her GOP competitors, and because she is leading the pack
she will undoubtedly be the focus of plenty of nasty attacks in the
coming months. Her opposition will most likely play the George Ryan
card against her at every opportunity in an attempt to convince
voters that she is part of the “old way.”
The real danger for Topinka is winning the
Republican primary but being so hobbled by a brutal campaign that
she can’t defeat Blagojevich or whoever ends up with the
Democratic nomination.
U.S. Rep Ray
LaHood — The Republicans are
in rebuilding mode after the twin disasters of 2002 and 2004.
Primary voters may be holding out for someone different —
someone with no solid contacts to either George Ryan or the radical
right. LaHood, if he stays in the race, could position himself as
that person.
Nobody really knows whether LaHood is in this
thing for the long haul. The early, early line on LaHood was that
he was trying to use this race to pry something loose for
himself in D.C.
LaHood is an anti-abortion, pro-gun,
anti-gay-rights conservative who allows himself to be billed by
legions of sympathetic reporters as a moderate independent —
and that makes him the candidate most feared by the Topinka
campaign. If Topinka stumbles, LaHood could move into the lead
— if, that is, he stays in the race.
Jim
Oberweis — If the milk
magnate had started his 2004 campaign with those incredibly
positive ads about Canadian drug imports, which he used at the end
of the race, instead of the illegal-immigrant bashing that he used
at the beginning, he might have won the U.S. Senate primary.
The immigrant attacks haunt Oberweis, who has
tried to change the subject several times without success. His past
makes him highly susceptible to charges from Topinka and others
that he is unelectable in the fall. If voters care about that
angle, Oberweis is toast.
Ron
Gidwitz — The former state
school superintendent has plenty of cash and a strong business
résumé, but he has been stuck at 1 percent (or less)
in every poll taken this year and will need to spend an
extraordinary sum just to get into contention.
Gidwitz formally announced his candidacy last
month and was almost immediately hit with a series of stories about
how his family’s company is a slumlord in Joliet. The local
paper editorialized that the apartment complex fleeces taxpayers
while “providing the latest in Third World living conditions
to its unfortunate inmates.” Joliet is reportedly not the
only place where the Gidwitz family has trouble with this
particular issue, so we can expect lots more on this topic.
He’s weak on the stump and has not
impressed local party leaders with his demeanor to date. His past
advocacy for large education-spending increases make him
susceptible to charges that he is a closet tax-raiser.
But his personal fortune, his high-priced
advisors, and his dogged determination to stick with the race force
people such as myself to take his candidacy seriously. So far,
however, nobody else is. Still, it’s possible that he could
come up with some great breakthrough ads and move forward.
We’ll see.
More next week.
This article appears in Jul 7-13, 2005.
