I don’t do predictions, but my pal Don Rose does.

Much as I prefer to defy conventional wisdom, this season’s calls on the major primaries statewide and in Cook County amount to little more than an echo of same.

It would have been interesting, for example, to foresee one or another of Judy Baar Topinka’s major challengers—Ron Gidwitz or Jim Oberweis—pull a Seabiscuit, but she’ll outpoint them both with about 38 percent and face Governor Blago in the fall—where I now predict she will fall short by nearly 3 points. Remarkable how Ron Gidwitz’s high qualifications, big endorsements and bigger bucks—which bought a good ad campaign—simply couldn’t move the numbers. At the moment it doesn’t look like he’ll hit 30 percent.

As to the Guv, the only question is whether his semi-opponent, Edwin Eisendrath III, reaches the 29 percent he got against Congressman Sid Yates some 16 years ago. There is a built-in 30 percent vote against almost anybody but I doubt Little Lord Eddie (as the late, great Steve Neal dubbed him) will crack that barrier. If, perchance he should go as high as 35 or more percent it is ominous for the Guv in the fall. It will reflect a significant Democratic split of the magnitude that kept Republicans in the office for a decade after they really lost their statewide majority. (I believe Lisa Madigan might have beat Blago.)

Joe Birkett is likely to be carried in with her by a substantial vote over the far more deserving Steve Rauschenberger and will be a drag on Topinka’s ticket in the fall.

The Dem race for state treasurer pits Mike Madigan against Barack Obama—excuse me, Paul Mangieri against Alexi Giannoulias. Madigan is backing the moderate downstater Mangieri, but Cook County is where the votes come from. Obama, lots of fine TV and plenty bucks will bring Giannoulias home handily. Does anyone really know what a treasurer is or does? They do know Obama knows and seem to trust him.

The race for Cook County Board president is where an upset might occur if CW is upset this month. The Tribune poll shows incumbent John Stroger with a 10-point lead over Commissioner Forrest Claypool; private polls have the race much tighter. So tight that Stroger had to go all-out to get Richard M. Daley and William Jefferson Clinton to do commercials on his behalf (he never speaks for himself in his commercials). He also got one from Carol Moseley Braun, which might actually be counterproductive.

Stroger was hospitalized on the day the poll came out, adding a note of strong uncertainty to the outcome. The 76-year-old added a stroke to a string of health problems that clearly put his continuing in office in jeopardy. If he should win the primary and then quit, the party gets to select his successor, widely rumored to be Assessor Jim Houlihan. But who knows. If he wins and is elected in November—as he certainly would—his fellow county board members pick one of their own.

I think this does not sit well with the public. This is the fear factor—though there is a sympathy factor as well. I’m going to go out on a limb and say the bottom line will go slightly in Claypool’s favor—perhaps just enough to win. But then, I also thought John Kerry would win.

His bio: “Don Rose is a writer and independent political consutant who has worked for both parties in the past. His clients have included former Gov. Jim Edgar, Mayors Harold Washington and Jane Byrne of Chicago, former Supreme Court Justice Seymour Simon plus a host of radical activists.”