* DuPage County State’s Attorney Joe Birkett is apparently using the Barack Obama campaign to build his network in advance of a possible 2010 gubernatorial bid. Obama was in Las Vegas on Monday, and Birkett was featured in a GOP conference call..
Birkett, a former Republican candidate for governor in Illinois, raised doubts about Obama’s judgment based on a 2005 real estate deal with the wife of Tony Rezko, a Chicago-based political fundraiser and real estate developer who was convicted earlier this month of sixteen federal counts of bribery, fraud and money laundering.
Birkett said it was “more than bone-headed” for Obama to purchase a house in Chicago the same day Rezko’s wife purchased an adjoining lot, and that Americans should question “whether or not [Obama] has the kind of judgment to be the president of the United States.” […]
“Obviously, one of the things I do not do is speculate about criminal activity,” said Birkett. “However, I can tell you this, that oftentimes we have seen during the course of the last several years in Illinois where public officials are having things done for them privately that do in fact turn out to be related to some deal, some quid pro quo.”
Birkett quickly added that he was “not aware of any quid pro quo and certainly would not accuse Sen. Obama of that.”
Some of that is just obvious crud, but I’m more interested with how Birkett is using Obama to bolster his own party cred.
* Republican US Sen. Gordon Smith has a far different approach to Obama, which may be adopted here by some of the more vulnerable incumbent Republicans…
“Who says Gordon Smith helped lead the fight for better gas mileage and a cleaner environment? Barack Obama! He joined with Gordon and broke through a 20-year deadlock to pass new laws which increase gas mileage for automobiles.”
Four years ago, Republican Illinois state Rep. Beth Coulson had Obama all over her literature, and you can expect quite a bit of that again.
I don’t know whether I have a point here, but it is interesting to see how Obama is impacting GOP races. Thoughts?
