*** UPDATE *** After answering several questions about DC minister Willie Wilson’s past earlier this afternoon, the Kirk campaign now says that the Willie Wilson at the event is from the Chicago area. Here’s his bio. Strange, that.
Wilson is apparently a deacon at Christ Temple Baptist Church in Markham. Deacons aren’t usually called “Reverend.”
[ *** End Of Update *** ]
* I’m really not sure why I’m supposed to care that a Washington, DC minister just endorsed Mark Kirk…
Willie Wilson, a nationally prominent black pastor, announced his backing of Rep. Mark Kirk in the Illinois Senate race Monday, bucking his long tradition of supporting Democrats and splitting his endorsements at the top of the state ballot.
Wilson’s blessing is meant to signal to black voters that the Republican candidate is an acceptable option in one of the nastiest and closest Senate contests in the country.
“It’s about the man, not the party,” said Wilson, a pastor at Union Temple Baptist Church in Washington.
The Giannoulias campaign dismisses the endorsement, claiming Wilson is “not the leader of the Westside.”
Well, he’s not. Rev. Wilson’s church is in Washington, DC.
* From the Kirk campaign press release about Wilson’s endorsement…
Today’s endorsement follows another by the City News – an African American owned weekly newspaper serving Kankakee, Will and Southern Cook Counties.
That endorsement was made way back on April 22nd. And the paper has a long history of endorsing Republicans. The paper backed Adam Kinzinger against Debbie Halvorson, and Isaac Hayes over Jesse Jackson, Jr. The paper also endorsed Scott Lee Cohen back in July.
Basically, what’s happening is that Kirk is attempting to counter the continuing argument by Giannoulias that Kirk’s “election integrity” program is targeted at black voters.
* And I really can’t believe that WLS Radio picked up on this story. Oh, wait. Nevermind. It’s WLS Radio…
Democratic Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias may have been better served to reserve attacks on opponent Mark Kirk’s military service record should a report by a Greek law office prove true.
According to a report by The Weekly Standard, Giannoulias, who holds dual citizenship in Greece, may have dodged the Greek draft while he lived in the country from 1998 to 1999.
Legal analysis prepared by an Athens-based law firm and obtained by The Weekly Standard found that Giannoulias lied to reporters when his campaign told the State Journal-Register he wouldn’t be required to serve in the Greek armed forces because he was not a permanent resident.
So, he may have been required to serve in the Greek army and he didn’t. I’m not sure I care.
The Giannoulias campaign has composed a model that includes every voter in Illinois with a grade from zero to 100, a score of 100 meaning they are most likely to vote for Giannoulias.
So far, of the 150,000 Illinois voters who voted early as of Thursday morning, 54 percent of them scored 50 or above on that predictor, Rendina said.
Among those more intensely for Giannoulias or Kirk, the most-likely Giannoulias voters — those scoring 70-100, accounted for 47 percent of the early votes.
Those judged to be most likely to be Kirk supporters — scoring 0-30 — accounted for only 38 percent of early votes.
There is a lot of guessing involoved there, Rendina admits. Not everyone will vote as predicted. The projections are based on past tallies of whether they have generally requested Democratic or Republican ballots.
* Edward McClelland makes an interesting case about newspaper endorsements. After asking Alexi Giannoulias what spending he would have opposed in the past two years, a Tribune editorial board member cut him off short…
McCormick: “You don’t get to have these long discussions in Congress. You vote yes or no.”
The resulting Tribune endorsement of Mark Kirk claimed that Giannoulias couldn’t answer the question, and Kirk has since used that statement in his advertising. From McClelland…
Has McCormick never watched a Senate hearing? Congress spends most of its time having long discussions. It spends a few minutes voting on the bills that result from those discussions. Presumably, as a senator with expertise in banking, Giannoulias would have had input into TARP, allowing him to shape it into a bill more to his liking. Congress isn’t simply presented bills and asked for a thumbs up or thumbs down. It’s not the Chicago City Council. It writes bills, debates them, and offers amendments.
Giannoulias gave a legitimate answer, but he was in a hostile forum. The Tribune Editorial Board only endorsed its first Democrat in 2008 — a wise business decision, considering most of its subscribers voted for Obama. Everyone expected the Tribune to endorse Kirk. We didn’t expect the paper to write his campaign ads, too
* Meanwhile, after failing to come up with any real reason to vote for Bill Brady in their original endorsement, the Tribune has since published an editorial about education reform that was red meat for the base.
In the 10th Congressional District, the latest Democratic ad ties Republican Robert Dold to a group that opposes abortion rights. The ad ends with the tagline, “Too extreme for Illinois.”
After being somewhat cagey on the issue during the GOP primary, Dold has said he supports abortion rights, but doesn’t want tax dollars spent on it and wants minors to get the consent of a parent or judge before getting one. Dold was recommended by the Illinois Federation for Right to Life in the Republican primary, but the group pointed out that Dold doesn’t oppose abortion
New York Times / Chicago News Cooperative columnist James Warren also just wrote a piece about Dold…
A candidate can’t be expected to embrace everybody who supports him. But those backers can still leave a voter wondering where a candidate really stands.
Robert Dold, a Republican who’s running for Mr. Kirk’s north suburban congressional seat, publicly asserts he’s pro-abortion rights, but he keeps being endorsed by anti-abortion groups, the most recent being the Illinois Family Institute.
The key abortion question on its candidate questionnaire relates to proposed federal legislation to require that providers speak vividly to mothers. The proposed script for doctors includes the line, “There is substantial evidence that the process of being killed in an abortion will cause the unborn child pain, even though you receive a pain-reducing drug or drugs.”
Mr. Kirk said that he’s against the proposal. Mr. Dold, the self-proclaimed Kirk Redux moderate, said that he’s for it.
Dold, by the way, refused to eventually filled out Planned Parenthood’s questionnaire. The group, along with every other pro-choice organization, are none too happy with Dold.
And that brings us to the Tribune editorial entitled “Come on, Mr. Seals“…
You can get immune to candidates taking liberties with the truth as they rip each other during campaigns, but sometimes they mislead voters so badly you have to call them on it. Such is the case with Democrat Dan Seals.
Seals is running for the U.S. House in the north suburban 10th District. He and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee are running ads that say Republican Robert Dold is “too extreme” on abortion. But they don’t cite Dold’s own words or views on abortion. That wouldn’t work, because Dold plainly says he supports abortion rights. They cite, instead, the views of the Illinois Federation for Right to Life.
“Bob Dold is hiding who he is. Dold’s supported by radical groups that would criminalize abortion in every case,” says an ominous voice in a Seals TV ad.
The editorial gets into the tricky business of what candidates say they are vs. what they really are. We often rely on established groups for guidance on this topic. For instance, if a candidate says he’s pro gun rights, but has no support from any gun organizations at all, is he or she really “pro-gun”? Well, yes, he or she could actually be pro-gun. Endorsements often go to incumbents when it’s a close call. But if a gun group specifically blasted a candidate as being “anti-gun” I’d take some notice.
Dold ran against what appeared to be a pro-life candidate in the GOP primary, but Illinois Federation for Right to Life still “recommended” Dold. That’s always been puzzling to me. From Tom Roeser…
Pro-lifer Arie Friedman lost to Bob Dold for 10th district Congress: at least Dold is somewhat pro-life—but I’m assuaged that pro-abort State Rep. Beth Coulson, worse than even NY-23’s Dede Scozzafava (the same lefty Beth who didn’t even endorse George W. Bush for reelection in 2004) has conceded to Dold.
The problem here is that Dold has indeed been “cagey” about what he actually supports. And until he has a voting record, we don’t know for sure who he really is and what he actually believes, even though his sisters insist that he’s pro-choice. Still, he’s worked overtime to publicly disassociate himself from some of the conservative groups that are supporting him, and that makes me more than a little suspicious about what’s really going on here. So it doesn’t look totally out of bounds for Seals to whack Dold on abortion since the pro-choice groups are so universally down on the guy. This isn’t nearly as clear-cut an issue as the Tribune tries to make it, except that Dold is their guy and they’re defending him. I get that, too. I just don’t follow their logic.
On the other hand, the Tribune claimed that state Rep. Mark Walker “has an anti-business voting record” even though Walker was endorsed by the Illinois State Chamber of Commerce. So go figure.
*** UPDATE *** If this newly posted AP story is any gauge, Sen. Hendon’s comments have “worked” to get the message out about Brady’s voting record…
Republican Bill Brady’s views on abortion, gay rights and other social issues are getting new attention, but the candidate for governor says his focus is on jobs and money.
State Sen. Rickey Hendon harshly attacked Brady’s record over the weekend, calling his fellow senator “idiotic.” And an abortion-rights group is running an ad pointing out Brady’s position.
Brady opposes abortion even in cases of rape and incest. He also opposes including gay people in the state law against job and housing discrimination.
Brady has criticized legislation requiring equal pay for equal work, and he opposes gun control.
[ *** End Of Update *** ]
* As I told subscribers this morning, Sen. Rickey Hendon’s comments over the weekend put Gov. Pat Quinn in a real trick bag. And even though Hendon kinda/sorta apologized for them on WLS Radio this morning, I’m not sure this is over yet.
“I’ve never served with such an idiotic, racist, sexist, homophobic person in my life,” Hendon said before introducing Gov. Quinn. “If you think that the minimum wage needs to be three dollars an hour, vote for Bill Brady. If you think that women have no rights whatsoever, except to have his children, vote for Bill Brady. If you think gay and lesbian people need to be locked up and shot in the head, vote for Bill Brady.”
Republican candidate for governor Bill Brady says Governor Quinn should apologize to the people of Illinois for what Hendon said about Brady.
But Quinn said he is not apologizing for comments he himself did not make. Brady suggested he and Hendon should say they’re sorry.
“It’s not about me — it’s about the people of Illinois,” Brady, a state senator and businessman from Bloomington, says. “They are disgusted with campaigns that go to that level. I think (Quinn) needs to apologize, and he should renounce Hendon from his campaign.”
With little more than a week before the Nov. 2 election, Quinn has wanted to put the focus on his vast differences with Brady’s record on social issues to an electorate that largely is concerned about the economy and jobs. Hendon provided the political cover to do so.
Quinn’s support among African-American voters is weak for a Democrat, a new Tribune/WGN poll shows. Among women statewide, Quinn is barely ahead. And among white suburban women, who tend to be moderate on issues such as abortion, Quinn and Brady are running even.
So, Hendon helped focus a “weak” black base, but likely turned off that all-important suburban white woman demographic.
* As mentioned above, Hendon kinda/sorta apologized today. From WLS Radio…
Now Hendon tells Cisco Cotto on WLS, “On your show right now I will apologize to the people of the state of Illinois if they were offended by what I said, but I will not apologize to Bill Brady for telling the truth about his voting record,” Hendon said.
When we ask conservative Republicans running for office this year where they stand on important social issues like gun control and abortion, we typically get a canned response that goes like this:
“Golly, when I knock on doors and talk to the voters, they just don’t care about that stuff. All they want to talk about is jobs.”
There is truth to that. The bad economy is foremost on the mind of most voters.
But that response is also a transparent dodge, a way to divert attention from what can be extreme, even dangerous, views.
In Illinois, nobody has played dodgeball harder than state Sen. Bill Brady, the GOP nominee for governor. And nobody has had better reason. Brady’s deeply conservative views on many social issues, if widely known, would appall the more moderate Republican and independent voters he needs to win.
* Roundup…
* Mark Brown: Brady cash flood make mockery of disclosure laws: These are among the many individuals and corporations fueling the Republican Governors Association, which reported dumping another $1.4 million into Illinois late last week, channeling the money through a shell campaign fund, RGA Illinois 2010 PAC, that was created for the purpose of helping Brady. The group’s latest donation pushes its total involvement in the Brady campaign past the $6.8 million mark, which I believe to be unprecedented in an Illinois state election.
* When Brady fought the neighbors: Dave Anderson, who retired as Normal city manager in 1998, said he’s never walked out of a meeting with the Bradys. “And I can’t say that about every subdivider in town,” he said. That willingness to negotiate goes hand-in-hand with what observers say is a concern to protect the family’s reputation. Among the family’s many charitable efforts was building a home in Philo last year for ABC’s “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” just months before Brady won the Republican gubernatorial primary.
* Independent gubernatorial candidate Scott Lee Cohen has finally filed his pre-election report (almost a week late). It shows he loaned his campaign another $2.1 million. By my figuring, Cohen has loaned or given his campaign over $5.8 million since the summer of 2009.
* The Question: How well do you think Cohen will do next Tuesday? And explain, please.
* Two things to keep in mind about the Tribune’s new US Senate poll. From the article…
The poll of 700 registered voters, conducted last Monday through Friday…
I’m going on the hope that they asked those registered voters if they were likely to vote. If not, this is worthless. Also, a five-day window? Some of these numbers are now a week old. That’s ancient in campaign terms.
Kirk’s support among independents increased from 38 percent to 50 percent, the poll showed, while Giannoulias’ backing among unaligned voters was relatively stagnant at about 28 percent. During that time period, the number of undecided independent voters dropped from 22 percent to 8 percent — with Kirk picking up virtually all of those deciding on a candidate. […]
The poll showed potential avenues where Giannoulias can grow support — if he can get Democrats motivated. Concerns of a post-2008 letdown have prompted Obama to make two visits back home to Chicago to help Giannoulias and other Democrats, with a third trip planned for Saturday.
Only two-thirds of voters in predominantly Democratic Chicago back Giannoulias’ candidacy, a gain of less than 5 percentage points from late September, while 15 percent of city voters said they were undecided. At the same time, in increasingly Democratic suburban Cook County, Giannoulias carries a slim 49 percent to 43 percent advantage over Kirk.
Kirk holds a strong 15 percentage-point advantage among men, and Giannoulias has an 8 percentage-point edge among women across the state. But the two men each have the support of 43 percent of a key voting demographic: white suburban women who tend to be social moderates.
* Meanwhile, the DSCC just leaked its latest topline…
If the election for U.S. Senate were held today, for whom would you vote — Alexi Giannoulias, a Democrat, Mark Kirk, a Republican, Michael Labno, a Libertarian, or LeAlan Jones, of the Green Party?
Total Giannoulias 38%
Total Kirk 36%
Total Labno 4%
Total Jones 7%
Undecided 16%
Another five-day polling window, but at least it’s more recent (Wednesday through yesterday). 600 likely voters. MoE +/-4.0 percent.
* Related…
* Charlie Cook: Dems’ House Losses Likely Enormous, but Senate Hard to Read
* This appears to be a new TV ad for JUSTPAC, which is running the “Vote No” campaign against Illinois Supreme Court Chief Justice Tom Kilbride. Rate it…
* We’ve all praised Simon Edelman for almost a year for his Pat Quinn campaign videos. Many of you have said that Simon ought to be doing Quinn’s campaign ads as well. The Quinn campaign is now running some regional Downstate ads, and guess who did them? You guessed it. Southern Illinois…
My girlfriend just received a call from a woman who said she was a rape victim. The call said that Brady was against all forms of pro choice even in the case if rape and incest. Any truth to this?
That robocall was probably from Personal PAC and, yes, it’s true.
* The Illinois Chamber has posted a few Internet promo videos for its endorsed candidates. Here is the one for Bill Brady…
The promo for Mark Kirk is here, and the Bobby Schilling promo is here.
The ad is running on black radio, but a wider buy is planned, the campaign says. Script…
It’s election time, and everyone wants our vote. But not every Democrat deserves it.
Take Joe Berrios, candidate for Assessor.
Twenty years ago, Berrios worked against Mayor Harold Washington. Berrios supported Ed Vrdolyak and his cronies — the folks who waged council wars against Harold, and nearly tore our city apart.
Today, Berrios is still with Vrdolyak — helping him fulfill his community service sentence for mail fraud.
And Berrios is a paid lobbyist for liquor and gambling interests – passing a law that legalizes video gaming – the “crack cocaine” of gambling.
Don’t let Berrios and the Democratic Machine take us for granted.
There’s a better choice for Assessor – independent candidate Forrest Claypool.
Claypool was picked by Barack Obama to lead his Senate transition team. Claypool’s been endorsed by Alderman Ed Smith and Congressman Jesse Jackson Junior.
He’ll stand up for us – not the machine.
On November Second, vote Forrest Claypool for Assessor.
I joked to a Democrat last week that I seriously doubted state Rep. Kevin McCarthy (D-Orland Park) ever would vote for a legislative pay raise again after getting whacked so hard by the Republicans for his pay hike votes this fall. McCarthy has been brutalized for those votes, and he’s had to work harder on this campaign that he has in more than a decade.
“I don’t think Kevin will vote for anything,” came the reply.
He could very well be right, and not just about McCarthy. There are a whole lot of extremely frightened Democratic legislative incumbents out there right now, including those who don’t have serious opponents. And even if individuals survive November 2, they surely will watch in horror as many of their colleagues go down in flames.
One would hope that this brutal campaign season would be a wake-up call for all state legislators and that election day will be a Jeffersonian “refresh” of the “tree of liberty,” albeit with symbolic blood.
But legislators are human beings, and humans often learn the absolute wrong lessons. And the lesson this year could easily be: No matter how you vote, you’re still gonna get zapped harder than you could have ever imagined, so don’t take any chances at all.
For instance, if you vote against every legislative pay raise but then vote for appropriations bills that pay for those raises, you’re slammed for raising your own and (for good measure) Rod Blagojevich’s pay. McCarthy actually voted to raise his pay, but several others who are being pummeled on this issue did not.
Now there are always these sorts of worries right before an election when the negativity is at its peak.
“We talked about this two years ago,” one Republican pal said last week.
“Yeah,” I responded, “and look what’s happened since. A whole lot of bad.”
I’ve talked to some who firmly believe that the Republican game-playing in House Speaker Michael Madigan’s own Chicago district could mean big trouble after the election as Madigan seeks revenge for the humiliation, whether he holds on to his majority or not. The Republicans have publicly taunted Madigan in the media for allegedly recruiting his own candidate, and Madigan is spending more money on his own campaign now than he has in memory.
The fears about a Madigan retaliation could very well be justified. Just look at how House Republican Leader Tom Cross responded after Madigan started funding his own unknown and no-chance Democratic opponent late in the 2008 campaign. Except for the capital construction bill (which everybody desperately wanted) we’ve had more House gridlock since that election than ever before, and that’s really saying something. Republican state Rep. Bill Black didn’t get tossed out of GOP leadership last summer because he was one of three Republicans to vote for the Democrats’ pension bond bill. He got the boot because he consorted with a mortal enemy.
The situation is better in the Senate, but it ain’t all roses. The Senate president’s decision, since abandoned, to go after Republican incumbent John Millner widely was seen as a harbinger of doom. Millner was one of the only Republicans who was regularly willing to work with the other side of the aisle. The Democrats will almost surely wind up with a far smaller majority after November 2. They’ll need to work with the Republicans to get anything done no matter who wins the governor’s race. But why would any Republicans trust them after what they did to Millner?
Then there’s the legislative district remap. If Gov. Pat Quinn loses to Bill Brady and/or Madigan loses his majority, nobody will know who will control the remap process until late next summer or early fall unless they can cut a deal - which hasn’t happened in a very long time. With the map in doubt, there’s even less incentive to work together.
All of this couldn’t come at a worse possible time, of course. The state’s budget deficit is practically insurmountable. Unemployment remains stubbornly and scarily high. People are angry and frightened because nobody can point to any light at the end of this tunnel.
Somehow, some way, the people who lead this state are going to have to find it in them to pull everyone together and address these issues after this bloody fall campaign. But right now all of them are doing everything possible to undermine any sort of resolution.
Still, David Ramos, Executive Director of Cook County’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management Office was accompanied by a North Side security firm whose owners — identified as former FBI agents — specialize in countersurveillance, according to a visitor’s log for the county building.
About 9:30 p.m., Cook County Sheriff’s deputies, in charge of security at the building, spotted several people “removing items” from Stroger’s 5th floor offices, said Steve Patterson, a spokesman for Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart.
Michaels was replaced by a four-member office called the Executive Council, which will be charged with stabilizing the company while it struggles to exit bankruptcy court after almost two years of fractious, stop-and-start negotiations with creditors.
The Chronicle of Philanthropy survey includes the nation’s 400 biggest charities, based on finances. It includes 15 from Illinois.
The decline in Illinois mirrored the 11 percent decrease nationwide.
Some organizations managed to buck the trend. Most notable was the Evanston-based Rotary Foundation of Rotary International, No. 75 on the list. Its private donations ballooned by 43.4 percent, to $223.8 million, thanks to Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
Sneed hears Ferguson has devised a plan he thinks will save the city approximately $275 million, which includes budget options guaranteed to sound alarms all over the city!
The report, which contains 24 options “to decrease city spending or increase city revenue,” calls for reducing the size of the Chicago Fire Department by 595 firefighters, cutting off free water and sewer service for nonprofit organizations like the profoundly respected Misericordia, and moving sworn police officers to nonadministrative jobs.
* Aldermen Look into Merging Office of Compliance with Inspector General’s Office
* Record surge at local and national graduate schools
Health sciences saw the biggest growth — nearly 15 percent — nationally in applications from 2008 to 2009, according to a report Bell wrote for the Council of Graduate Schools. Interest in nursing primarily fueled the increase, he said.
Overall, the group’s study found that new graduate-student enrollment grew 5.5 percent between 2008 and 2009, compared with 4.5 percent the prior year. Between 1999 and 2009, the average annual first-time graduate enrollment growth was nearly 5 percent for U.S. students and 3.3 percent for international students.
Defense attorneys had requested the delay. Their team has been cut by several attorneys so the remaining handful have to catch up on what other lawyers did during the first trial. And Sheldon Sorosky told judge Zagel that as a defense attorney, he hasn’t been able to focus one hundred percent on the governor’s case because he’s got lots of clients who were put on the back burner while Blagojevich was on trial.
According to CHA’s FY 2010 annual report to HUD, when Cabrini’s transformation is complete, it will boast 5,141 privately developed, mixed-income units — 1,200 as public housing, 932 for working-class families, and 3,009 for sale or rental at market rates.
Much of the credit for the surplus is attributed to the village’s privatization program, keeping full-time staff levels to 58, below that of nearby municipalities.
The report also stresses cost containment. Garbage collection rates are 12.9 percent lower than 1996 rates when adjusted for inflation. Water and sewer rates are 15.2 percent lower than 1992 rates when adjusted for inflation.
Aurea Picasso will be transported this morning to the Criminal Courts Building in Chicago for a bond hearing on allegations she stole $193,000 from various township funds.
The Aurora woman is charged with theft from a government entity, Cook County state’s attorney’s office spokeswoman Sally Daly said. A conviction carries a prison sentence of between six and 30 years.
A final report on the failed family bank of Democratic Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias will not be released until after the Nov. 2 election, federal regulators said today.
The release of the report before the election could have been another political headache for Giannoulias in the close contest with Republican Mark Kirk. Giannoulias has been on the defensive over his role in loans Broadway Bank made to convicted felons while he was a senior loan officer, as well as other troubled lending that contributed to the bank’s collapse early this year.
The inspector general of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. typically issues a “material loss” report, which details issues in a bank’s failure, about six months after the institution is taken over by the regulators. Broadway, which the FDIC accused of “unsafe banking practices,” was closed on April 23, at a cost to the FDIC of $394.3 million.
When it issued an interim report in August, the inspector general’s office said the final report would be issued on or before its Nov. 14 due date. On Friday, agency lawyer John Davidovich said the report is not expected within the next two weeks.
* From NRSC Chairman Senator John Cornyn…
“President Obama won a historic election by promising to ‘change the way Washington works,’ but just two years later, his administration appears to be directing agencies to delay a report in an attempt to influence a U.S. Senate race.
“This demands answers immediately: Why is the Obama Administration holding back information involving the failure of Alexi Giannoulias’ bank, which cost the taxpayers millions? President Obama should step forward and demonstrate leadership immediately to ensure that this information is in the public domain before Illinois voters cast their ballots.”
* House GOP Whip Eric Cantor even got into the act…
“People are extremely frustrated with Washington and the use of political influence to hide important information from the public is a clear example why.
“Illinois voters should know all of the facts about the candidates before casting their ballots, and the government should not be covering up information to protect political candidates.
“The failure of Alexi Giannoulias’ bank cost the government millions of dollars, and there is no excuse for President Obama and his administration to hide information from Illinois voters. Further, Alexi Giannoulias himself should demand that all information be made public if he has nothing to hide.”
Always-outspoken state Sen. Rickey Hendon on Saturday took aim at Republican gubernatorial nominee Bill Brady at a “get out the vote” rally on the West Side.
“I’ve never served with such an idiotic, racist, sexist, homophobic person in my life,” Hendon said before introducing Gov. Quinn. “If you think that the minimum wage needs to be three dollars an hour, vote for Bill Brady. If you think that women have no rights whatsoever, except to have his children, vote for Bill Brady. If you think gay and lesbian people need to be locked up and shot in the head, vote for Bill Brady.”
Quinn, who stood behind Hendon and was looking straight ahead during the remarks, tried to distance himself from the West Side lawmaker.
“I don’t associate myself with those comments,” Quinn said when a Tribune reporter asked about Hendon’s remarks. “I don’t talk that way. Everybody knows who I am. I’ve been around Illinois for many years. I have lived my whole life here. I believe in civility. I disagree with people in politics, like my opponent Sen. Brady. I don’t engage in name-calling. Never have, never will.”
Brady said Hendon’s comments reflected the low level the contentious campaign for governor had sunk.
“It’s too bad they’d go to this level. Rickey knows better,” Brady said Saturday at a Highwood pumpkin festival. “It’s just disappointing Pat Quinn would allow the campaign to go this route.”
“Look, I just told the truth,” said Hendon, who is running for Chicago mayor. “I know this man, and I serve with him. If he can show me that he votes differently than what I said, I will apologize. But he can’t say that. I know he can’t.”
Quinn campaign spokeswoman Mica Matsoff responded in an e-mail: “Perhaps Senator Brady should address Senator Hendon’s concerns instead of attributing comments to the Quinn campaign that we did not make.”
Double oy.
* Desperation is not only in the air, the whole campaign season reeks of it.
The Tribune rightly called Alexi Giannoulias’ “economic treason” attack on Mark Kirk “shameful”, and now we have this.
I hit a skunk on the way home last night and my garage smells better than this political atmosphere.
By the way, anybody know how to get that smell out of my car? I’d hate for the stench to last longer than this campaign.
…Adding… Both Brady and Quinn were at Rev. Sen. James Meeks’ church this morning. We’ll probably have more on this later.
…Quinn would not say whether he would apologize or whether Hendon should apologize after being asked repeatedly.
Brady said Quinn owes a broader apology for Hendon’s remarks. “More than me, I think he owes the people of Illinois an apology,” Brady said. “He should renounce Rickey Hendon and people like that from his campaign.”
While Quinn disavowed the strength of Hendon’s comments, he did not back away from some of the underlying issue differences with Brady. Quinn ticked off a list of Brady’s positions where they have “strong differences,” including Brady’s opposition to abortion in cases of rape and incest and opposition to gay rights.
As Quinn fielded reporters’ questions, a campaign aide passed out talking points on Brady’s positions on those issues.
