Judy Baar Topinka’s new campaign manager explains the campaign’s thinking to Bernie.

McFadden said the Topinka campaign has heard estimates that Gov. ROD BLAGOJEVICH’s campaign, which had more than $15.5 million in the bank as of Dec. 31, has spent at least $6 million on television ads since January. The governor’s campaign spokeswoman couldn’t confirm that amount, but there’s no question that Blagojevich has been spending a lot on ads - many of them attacking Topinka.

McFadden said the “early onslaught of negative ads” is unprecedented, and it sets a tough campaign tone.

But Blagojevich, McFadden said, has a “tremendous credibility problem … that’s making it difficult for him to sell both his positive and negative messages right now.”

“It’s clear what his game plan is,” McFadden added. “He tried for a while to get his positives up, and polls show that didn’t work, so now he’s going on the negative side.”

It’s not yet certain what direction Topinka’s ads will take, McFadden said.

“You try to walk through these things logically, and you try to develop your messages, do your polling, do those kinds of things, and see where all that leads to, instead of just jumping in and start flailing around and throwing stuff around,” McFadden said.

“One of the most difficult challenges we have, frankly, in the campaign,” he said, “is weeding through all the messages we feel are effective against the governor and trying to find out which ones can be the most effective.

“We’re going to have to be creative,” he added, to get through the “clutter” of what will probably be a sustained ad campaign from now through Nov. 7 from the governor. Many voters already are tired of the governor’s ads, and by fall, “they may be more tired of them,” he said.

Topinka needs to show she is a “good, credible alternative,” McFadden said, and he thinks she is positioned well for that, despite the bruising GOP primary.

Topinka is a moderate, in GOP terms, McFadden said, but she can regain support from those on the political right through a “strong record of fiscal discipline.”

“If Jim Edgar can pull it off, I think she can,” McFadden said.

Topinka also is from suburban Cook County, where Republicans have to do well, he said. And “she’s with a lot of independent female voters on the issues.”

And the back and forth continues…

Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s campaign unveiled another TV commercial Sunday, this time attacking state Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka’s record of attendance on a board that manages state pension investments.

Meanwhile, in a dueling Chicago news conference an hour later and a few blocks away, Topinka said Blagojevich has refused to do anything to help lower gas prices, and she called for the governor to act on the issue before the Legislature adjourns. […]

The new commercial accuses Topinka of missing every meeting of the Illinois State Board of Investment, a nine-member board that manages $10 billion in state pension money.

“It’s hard to be a leader if you never come to the meetings,” Quinn said. “I think the other members of the state pension board would certainly listen carefully to what the treasurer of Illinois would say.”

Quinn also said while Blagojevich intends to propose a “pro-consumer” plan regarding gas prices after the Legislature passes the budget, the issue is a national problem that needs to be addressed in Washington D.C.

Regarding the pension board, Topinka campaign spokesman Dave Loveday said Topinka is an ex-officio member — automatically getting a seat because she is treasurer — and one of her representatives attends every meeting.

“It’s just a diversion and they knew that,” Loveday said. “He (Blagojevich) should worry about his attendance in Springfield, go to Springfield and work on the budget, work on trying to do something for gas prices.”

UPDATE: Andy Plonka satirizes the guv’s new TV ad campaign:

Governor Rod Blagojevich has another campaign commercial, this time attacking state Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka’s record of attendance when she was an eighth grader in Riverside. […]

Each of the attack ads ends with a voiceover wondering, “What’s she thinking?” Future spots in the series will question Topinka’s choice of hairdresser, her parking ticket from 1987, a game of “Spin the Bottle” with Future Teachers of America club members when she was a sophomore in high school, and her involvement with the West Suburban Chapter of the Alpha Gamma Delta Sorority.