* My weekly syndicated newspaper column…

“Do you think he knows what he’s doing?” asked a top Republican last week about House Speaker Michael Madigan’s high-profile role at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.

Madigan heaped public praise last week on at least two potential Democratic gubernatorial candidates, US Sen. Dick Durbin and Chris Kennedy. And he mentioned US Rep. Tammy Duckworth by name as his state’s next US Senator during Tuesday’s presidential nomination roll call, which was broadcast throughout the country.

That may all seem like the usual national convention duties for a state Democratic Party chairman like Madigan, and it is. But Speaker Madigan’s poll numbers are so darned awful that the Republicans believe anyone he publicly “touches” is hugely tainted. A recent Republican-sponsored poll found that Madigan’s favorability rating was just 13 percent.

“He should keep doing what he’s doing,” cracked one Republican campaign type, who said he was carefully making notes of Madigan’s public utterances.

As is often the case, the two political parties exist in parallel universes. Yes, the Democrats say, Madigan polls poorly. But they don’t believe that voters will make up their minds about individual races based on that one “issue” alone. And some are even saying they’re pleased that the Republicans are “wasting” their money on a strategy that the Democrats believe won’t work.

Indeed, the Republicans spent tons of money during several election cycles attempting to tie the fabulously unpopular and currently incarcerated Rod Blagojevich to Democrats, and it only worked once, against Rep. Jay Hoffman in a newly drawn district with lots of unfamiliar voters. And they’ve been blasting away at Madigan for years, without any discernible impact at the polls.

Even so, if there was another high-profile Illinois Democrat out there whose favorability rating was hovering around 13 percent, you can be certain that Madigan and his people would mandate that their candidates and incumbents stay as far away from that person as humanly possible. Heck, the person’s rating wouldn’t even need to be that low. How many Downstate Illinois Democrats openly campaigned with Pat Quinn two years ago when he lost every county but one to Rauner?

The simple fact is that the GOP is placing a multi-million-dollar bet this year on a single person’s smashing unpopularity. Yes, the Republicans have tried and failed to do this same thing for literally decades. But never has so much money and effort been expended on the task—and Madigan has never been as well-known as he is today. Local news media outlets have so far been mostly cooperative, and the Republicans essentially have their own “newspapers” that are being mailed to voters just to make sure their message gets through.

The House Democrats are expected to counter all this with various retorts, including one that labels the Republican Bruce Rauner as a “failed governor.”

The Democrats will try to tie Republicans to a governor with a dismal 33 percent job approval rating who, they’ll say, wants to slash vital services and inflict harm on everyday working people.

In a preview of this, Rep. John Bradley’s latest TV ad claims the Democrat “stood up to Bruce Rauner’s massive cuts to our schools,” and points out that Rauner is “bankrolling” his opponent’s campaign and claims his GOP opponent “is worse than Rauner.” Bradley (D-Marion) sits at the very top of the Republicans’ target list and he has been hammered for weeks in the mail and on TV for being a Madigan “pawn.”

The House Democrats have often launched their campaigns in early to mid-August, well before the Republicans could afford to fight back. This time, though, the Republicans are flush with Rauner’s money and have dominated the playing field for weeks. Speaker Madigan reportedly told attendees at an Illinois Federation of Teachers political conference in early July that the governor’s campaign operation had spent more than a million dollars on House races in just two weeks.

And they’re not just spending money on negative attacks. A recent mailer for Rep. Terri Bryant (R-Murphysboro) touts her vote for the stopgap budget “without a tax increase.” The mailer also claims Rep. Bryant is fighting “against the Chicago political machine.” The Republicans have already sent innumerable mailers like that to voters everywhere before the Democrats have even gotten out of the gate.

Not mentioned, of course, is that the stopgap budget Bryant voted for had an $8 billion deficit and will create a $10 billion state payment backlog by December. Details, details.

* Related…

* House races key to Illinois’ political power struggles: Rauner blames House Speaker Michael Madigan and the Democrats for the state’s long-running financial predicament, and Republicans are asking voters to punish them for it in the November election. But the Democrats warn that Rauner’s agenda would be destructive to the middle class, and are banking on voters ultimately strengthening their hand in the legislature, which they control… “This will be a vote for what the governor is trying to do or what the Democrats are trying to do,” said Christopher Mooney, director of the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois. “Even if voters aren’t voting that way, it’s going to be seen that way.”

* Cavaletto Says Governor and House Speaker Out to Destroy Each Other: “They’re two stubborn, unpopular men who believe they are right and are intent on destroying each other. It’s as simple as that,” said Cavaletto. “And now we’re in the the middle of the fight in a state that could be booming, could be growing, people could be working, and we could flourish because we have the people here to do that. But we’ve got this going on.”