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As I figured, this is not going over well yet.
Election-exhausted voters might want politicians to simply disappear for a while, but Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich is eager to start debating Republican foe Judy Baar Topinka next month.The governor issued a debate challenge to state Treasurer Topinka Thursday, calling for 10 around the state starting next month. […]
Topinka’s camp also suggested waiting to see if state Sen. James Meeks of Chicago, who’s talking about running as an independent, gets in.
Blagojevich dispatched Lt. Gov. Patrick Quinn to a Capitol news conference to tout the debate proposal. When asked why he was there instead of the governor, Quinn said it’s because Blagojevich was in Chicago. The governor actually was across the street at an assault weapons ban rally.
The debate challenge is a long-standing gimmick in politics. This time, it appears to be part of Blagojevich’s strategy to take the fight to Topinka early in an attempt to define her with voters. Her campaign fund is drained after a bruising primary. And Blagojevich, who had $15 million to spend, already is airing a new TV ad touting himself for the fall.
And here’s the Sun-Times lede:
After steadfastly refusing to even acknowledge his primary challenger’s requests to debate, Gov. Blagojevich on Thursday sent Republican nominee Judy Baar Topinka a letter proposing they square off in 10 of the forums — starting as early as next month.The governor shrugged off his newfound love of debates after declining to go against former Ald. Edwin Eisendrath in the primary.
posted by Rich Miller
Friday, Mar 24, 06 @ 7:54 am
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The voters will not buy into this new strategy of the Governor’s. They realize that he stated just weeks ago that he was too busy governing the State of Illinois to debate in the primary. Many Democrats are disgusted with him because he is so transparent.
Comment by So Blue Democrat Friday, Mar 24, 06 @ 8:45 am
No, it’s very clever. See my post under “gun politics”.
Short version: in many of his topics He and judy are alike. he gets to remind conservative Repubs of that fact, on someone else’s dime.
Very, very clever of him.
Comment by Pat Collins Friday, Mar 24, 06 @ 8:51 am
This only shows that both Blago and Quinn needs replaced.What Judy needs is someone that can put together a grass roots campaign that should help in the money department.I think all of this will back-fire on Blago.
Comment by DOWNSTATE Friday, Mar 24, 06 @ 9:11 am
DON’T DO IT JUDY!!! Say you are too busy cleaning up his fund sweeps and pension raids to find the time to debate.
Comment by Shallow Pharnyx Friday, Mar 24, 06 @ 9:12 am
Judy may not have much of a choice. She doesn’t have as many $$ as Blagojevich does, so could probably use the free advertising. She needs to brush up on her debating skills though. She looked a little off in the GOP debates.
It may be opportunism on Rod’s part, but I would look forward to a good airing of views and policies between the two candidates.
Comment by cermak_rd Friday, Mar 24, 06 @ 11:25 am
What Judy needs is someone that can put together a grass roots campaign that should help in the money department.
Agreed. Look what it did for Brady. Went from single digits to almost 20%. Maybe she should talk with Bill about how he did it.
Might help.
Comment by Central IL Stater Friday, Mar 24, 06 @ 1:58 pm
This might be something she should consider.
1. He is probably bluffing and accepting would seriously catch him off guard and force him to give all this free publicity to his challenger.
2. She doesn’t appear to be very good in debate formats, of course he is not either, but she can just spin it as the whole substance over style thing.
3. If she debates him in April and has a bad performance, there is still a lot of time left in the campaign to recover from that. If she waits until the fall to debate and does not meet expectations, the political damage might be more severe. This way, by the fall, debates will hardly be a story and people might even be sick of them, and thus she can avoid all the potential pitfalls.
Comment by Establishment Republican Friday, Mar 24, 06 @ 2:02 pm
If JBT wants to turn this on G-Rod, she only has to ask for a guarantee that all ballot qualified candidates will be included in all debates.
Blagojevich will never agree to have debates with Meeks and the Greens unless absolutely forced.
Comment by Carl Nyberg Friday, Mar 24, 06 @ 3:51 pm
- DOWNSTATE - Friday, Mar 24, 06 @ 9:11 am:
“I think all of this will back-fire on Blago.”
Downstate, I agree and think that you are absolutely correct. However, it has intuitively come to my mind that Blagojevich does not and I repeat does not know about some of the real corruption that plagues his office. He is truly nieve and is uninformed by his staff. It appears that he allows them to be independent with hopes that they are doing the right things in betterment of the state, but some of them are actually hiding things from him in betterment of themselves.
To plan these debates with knowledge of corruption in your office would really be stupid wouldn’t it? When Blagojevich says “we do thing with honesty and integrity”, he really believes that! He downplays the federal investigation as it has been downplayed by his staff, “they’re just picking on us”, “they don’t want you to be VP”.
However, these debates and maybe before the debates start, Rod Blagojevich is going to get a wake up call about his staff and the secrets that they have been keeping from him.
One more scenario that let’s me know that he’s nieve: On FOX news the next day after the election, Blagojevich went on attack of former Governor George Ryan and his Inspector General and how corrupt they were and how they ignored corruption. If he knew what some of us know, he would not have made that comment and opened the doors to scrutiny. In fact, if he knew what some of us know, he would discontinue blasting George Ryan and trying to prove how they’re so different; when in actuality it is all one in the same just another four years!
Comment by ONE M.C.M.A.D Friday, Mar 24, 06 @ 4:06 pm
Maybe the guy from Comedy Central who interviewed the Governor will be the moderator of the debate.
Comment by Anonymous Friday, Mar 24, 06 @ 7:24 pm
At the debates just ask Blagozo how all of his “big” programs are doing. You know… the video game ban, AllKids, discount prescription medicine etc, etc,. What can he say? Bring ALL of his big press release programs up for discussion. He will run and hide, I mean “govern” and run B.S. TV ads.
Comment by Papa Legba Friday, Mar 24, 06 @ 8:09 pm