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Can Quinn catch up?

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Illinois

* The most likely political reason behind Gov. Quinn’s long-awaited signature of the capital bill, which was a reverse flip-flop…

On the strength of strong union support, Comptroller Dan Hynes reported $3.5 million in his political fund Monday, representing a five-to-one fund-raising lead over Gov. Quinn. […]

[Hynes’] largest donor was the Illinois Pipe Trades political action committee, which donated $50,000. International Union of Operating Engineers Local 649 in Peoria gave Hynes $43,000.

With the capital bill signed, that union money is now withing Quinn’s grasp. Keep an eye on his fundraising, which was better than expected and will only grow…

Gov. Pat Quinn has traditionally been a poor fundraiser, but state campaign finance records filed Monday show that once he replaced the ousted Rod Blagojevich and vowed to run for governor next year, his contributions skyrocketed to more than $860,000.

Hynes has a big cash on hand lead, but a governor has the power to raise huge amounts of money in a hurry. We’ll see if Quinn is up to it. Sneed says he’s looking at hiring David Rosen…

Sneed hears top Dem fund-raiser David Rosen, who has raised tons of cash for Hillary Clinton in the past, is in serious talks with the Quinn camp.

Rosen got into a spot of trouble with the G, but was acquitted. He’s a mega fundraiser who ought to scare the pants off any prospective Democratic opponents, Hynes included. If Quinn hires Rosen or somebody similar, then we’ll know he’s serious about doing what it takes to hold onto the job. Reformers are queasy about money, but you can’t win without it.

* The Republicans were less impressive…

State Sen. Bill Brady (R-Bloomington) raised more than $350,000 since January, including a $101,000 loan to his campaign, and had $410,000 on hand.

State Sen. Kirk Dillard (R-Hinsdale) had $101,000 available from his legislative fund, while another recently announced governor candidate, state Sen. Matt Murphy (R-Palatine), had $39,620 to spend after raising $21,000.

Republican operative and pundit Dan Proft had $16,659 on hand for his campaign for governor after raising $103,000, including a $67,000 loan.

Illinois Review has the complete list of GOP gubernatorial fundraising, including….

ADAM ANDRZEJEWSKI
Beginning Balance: $0.00
Total Contributions/Loans: $504,433.20
Total Expenditures: $147,779.45
Funds available: $356,653.75

Lots of dough there.

* Related…

* Money Race for Governor’s Seat Heats Up

* State Representative Dave Winters Announces Candidacy for Lieutenant Governor

* Winters to announce LG candidacy Wednesday

* Rutherford files for Treasurer with $400k

posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Jul 21, 09 @ 10:27 am

Comments

I am impressed with Quinn’s numbers. For him, they are huge. The money that sat on the sidelines waiting for Lisa to jump in is now freed up. This should help Quinn a bit too.

Comment by Niles Township Tuesday, Jul 21, 09 @ 10:36 am
Simply a general comment that has been stated a million times: These politicians must rake in so much money to compete, let alone win, that it’s a wonder 99% of the citizens don’t just say “screw it” - these guys are up to their eyeballs in IOU’s and temptations to rationalize. Is there an honest one among them? How could you tell if there was?

Comment by You Go Boy Tuesday, Jul 21, 09 @ 10:39 am
During a union meeting this morning were told that all State employee layoffs were recalled by the Gov yesterday.

Comment by DOC Employee Tuesday, Jul 21, 09 @ 10:42 am
If Dillard is able to get Edgar to help him with fundraising, then his numbers should also skyrocket.

Comment by One of the 35 Tuesday, Jul 21, 09 @ 10:55 am
The problem with Hynes is the lack of any definate differences between his image, and Quinn’s. Any Democrat interested in nominating an “Anti-Blagojevich” can reasonably support either candidate. It is like choosing between vanilla ice cream and vanilla frozen yogurt.

Hynes has to prove to Democrats that Quinn will lose the General for them to move choose him. Quinn has the Governor’s Mansion already and has the power of incumbancy to his advantage.

Hynes is a powerful gubernatorial candidate for the Democrats, but he is going to have to convince a party that willingly sold it’s soul to the devil in 2006 with Blagojevich, to ignor it’s current governor and choose Dan. It doesn’t look likely right now.

Comment by VanillaMan Tuesday, Jul 21, 09 @ 10:59 am
Vman
3 million is a great reason to look to him (Hynes). For Quinn to raise that amount, and the 15 or million more it will take, will change Quinns image from reformer to regular Democrat Hynes starting with 3 million more will give him a chance to raise money but slower and out of site.
35
Ron Gidwitz has said he will help Dillard raise $20 million that will help keep Edgar out of the Dillard campaign for the primary and that can only help with the base. Dillard has to let Edgar try to sell his new buddy Kirk downstate. That is gonna be a full time job!!!

Comment by votecounter Tuesday, Jul 21, 09 @ 11:32 am
Hynes is the republicans dream. He has less charisima than Quinn. Is he with the guys causing the problem, or was he too stupid to know there was a problem.

He had the ability to refuse to write checks for services progams the Governor illegally committed too, but he went along. This is why the Quinn, Hynes, Gianoulias team, could spell trifecta for republicans. All of them had power to exert checks and balances on Gov and did nothing. Only Lisa Madigan has figured out she can’t explain why she was complacent with violation of our constitituion and had decided to pull her horse out of the big race.

Comment by the Patriot Tuesday, Jul 21, 09 @ 11:35 am
At this point it does not matter what Quinn does or does not do. I know (and I am speaking for a large group of like minded people) we will work to flush these Pols out of governemtn. Illinoians would be completely stupid to mindlessly continue to for for Dems.

Comment by Anon Tuesday, Jul 21, 09 @ 11:51 am
===and I am speaking for a large group of like minded people===

Unless you are the president of a very large and highly organized group, please just speak for yourself.

Nothing spells “goofball” like somebody who claims to be speaking for the masses behind his keyboard.

Comment by Rich Miller Tuesday, Jul 21, 09 @ 11:56 am
Thank you Rich.

Comment by always anonymous Tuesday, Jul 21, 09 @ 12:17 pm
I am sure it must have been reported already somewhere else on CF, but former Northwestern basketball star Kip Kirkpatrick’s $512,000 raised for the Dem primary for State Treasurer is one of the huge surprises of yesterday’s filings. And he only opened up his own (extensive) wallet for 100K of that.

Comment by Al Swearengen Tuesday, Jul 21, 09 @ 12:32 pm
–Nothing spells “goofball” like somebody who claims to be speaking for the masses behind his keyboard.–

You’re on fire today, dude. On par with the “insult to hills,” comment, .

Comment by wordslinger Tuesday, Jul 21, 09 @ 12:35 pm
i’m not trying to diminish pat quinn’s numbers; because his numbers look good and he is to be commended for that, but…

in my view, it is worth noting that a significant portion of his fundraising occured prior to may 31st. In my view a good part of it appeared to have been good-will support from people who were happy and anxious to see him finally get a shot at the top of illinois government, an perform well.

I found it interesting that a lot of his support cooled and dropped off over the last several, particularly from individuals. meanwhile dan hynes’ picked up. I have to think that there is correlation between quinn’s inability to lead (may 31st-last week), put some serious doubts into people’s heads about him and gave people reason to pause. his image is STILL tarnished and his credibility damaged from his display of poor leadership (things that he said and did and that people won’t be quick to forget). moving foward, I personally don’t really think he exemplifies the very best leadership that the dems have to offer, and I think many feel as I do.

by contrast when I look at hynes’ numbers the first thing that came to my was that he can raise money like nobody’s business. I found it interesting that his numbers came through at a time when lisa madiagn was stalling and it looked like hynes might have to reconsider running for AG and run for governor instead.

Comment by Will County Woman Tuesday, Jul 21, 09 @ 12:47 pm
===I found it interesting that a lot of his support cooled and dropped off over the last several,===

Quinn raised $308,098.40 in June.

Comment by Rich Miller Tuesday, Jul 21, 09 @ 12:52 pm
I think Hynes’ time has come and gone, time will prove if I’m right or not, but I expect to see Quinn pull steadily ahead. Hynes’ job is not as high-profile and it is relatively easy to do in the overall scale of these things… yet a lot of people feel he dropped the ball on the funeral fund/burials thing, rightly or wrongly. Hynes used to take a lot more credit for overseeing that stuff, and now it went bad, he’s distancing himself and trying to put the job off on others. That’s not a good demonstration of leadership.

Had he done a better job on the budget, I think the numbers would already crush Pat’s primary opponents.

Comment by I. Raymon Tuesday, Jul 21, 09 @ 12:53 pm
===his numbers came through at a time when lisa madiagn was stalling and it looked like hynes might have to reconsider running for AG and run for governor instead. ===

Um, what? During the LM stall, it looked like Hynes would run for AG.

Comment by Rich Miller Tuesday, Jul 21, 09 @ 12:54 pm
@ rich,

what? so you disagree with me twice? okay.

seriously, in june hynes’ name was being bandied about for governor. as you may recall he did write the governor a rather terse letter about the budget, while lisa was being quiet. hynes’ was making noises like leader in june.

Comment by Will County Woman Tuesday, Jul 21, 09 @ 1:28 pm
Given what QUinn has raised with little serious effort, ading Rosen to the mix should open the flood gates. if he gets Rosen, I bet Quinn hits the 5 mil mark before the election.

Comment by Ghost Tuesday, Jul 21, 09 @ 1:42 pm
@ I. Raymon - Tuesday, Jul 21, 09 @ 12:53 pm

we’ll have to agree to disagree about hynes. I think the fact that he’s not a wild and crazy guy and comes from the same steady and cool-headed public adminstration bend as daley and madigan works to his advantage against someone like quinn. quinn has 30 years worth of baggage, but more importantly significant baggage in his short tenure as governor.

to forgive or to forget? only time will tell which voters will ultimately decide to do in his case.

Comment by Will County Woman Tuesday, Jul 21, 09 @ 2:01 pm
Followed your link to Illinois Review and ran across this while I was there:

http://illinoisreview.typepad.com/illinoisreview/2009/07/brady-adds-democrat-dean-vallas-as-finance-cochair.html

Surprised this didn’t garner any news coverage yesterday. Seems this should be a pretty big deal for downstate guy to pull off. Proft’s response is entertaining, too. If nothing else, he’ll pick up the Oberweis “offensive nut candidate” banner and run with it.

Comment by Surprised Tuesday, Jul 21, 09 @ 2:42 pm
Just curious but does anyone know off hand how much Attorney General Lisa Madigan has on hand?

Comment by Dollars Tuesday, Jul 21, 09 @ 3:28 pm
according to the sun times, mayor daley realy likes quinn as governor.

Comment by Will County Woman Tuesday, Jul 21, 09 @ 4:57 pm
according to carol marin chris kennedy is considering a run for governor. *raised eyebrows*

Comment by Will County Woman Tuesday, Jul 21, 09 @ 5:16 pm