Campaign Diaries

Governors across the country better be paying attention to what is happening in Illinois because Pat Quinn’s primary troubles are a testament to the many ways in which the economic crisis has endangered incumbents’ standing. Forced to take budget-cutting measures to adjust for declining revenues, most governors have gone down routes that can easily be attacked by their opponents. While targeting programs for the poor is often the easiest way out politically since the lower-class tends to not be organized, one of the solutions Quinn implemented - reducing prison costs - was bound to be exploited by his rivals.

Aimed at prisoners with short sentences, the Meritorious Good Time Push program allowed them to be paroled before their term ended, thus reducing the number of inmates incarcerated at any one time and by extension the costs associated with them. Yet, controversy erupted last month as the AP reported that many prisoners had received credit for time they served in county jails and were thus released from the state penitentiary weeks before the 61 days they were required to have served before qualifying for the program.

Quinn’s primary challenger, Comptroller Dan Hynes, immediately recognized the issue’s potential. Not only did he indict the governor’s responsibility in the mix-up, he also made the very existence of the program his main angle of attack, accusing Quinn of having failed to protect Illinois residents. Hynes has relentlessly attacked the governor over these issues in recent weeks, including at debates, which has put Quinn on the defensive - the governor ended up calling the early release program a “mistake” and tried to pin the blame on the state’s prisons director.

Taking pages out of George H. W. Bush’s playbook, Hynes is airing an ad that accuses Quinn of being indirectly responsible for a crime committed by an inmate who was released early. “This man was let out of prison early by Pat Quinn. He’s now been arrested for assaulting a woman for four hours, choking and beating her,” the narrator says. “A governor’s bad judgment does have consequences. It’s time to release Pat Quinn from his job.”

However successful Hynes’s relentless focus on the prison program, none of his attacks has been as brutal, and none could come to define the primary as much as, his ad featuring former Chicago Mayor Harold Washington, a hero not only in the African-American community but also among reformers. The ad features 20-year old footage of Washington saying that he wish he had not hired Quinn as the city budget director; “Pat Quinn is a totally and completely undisciplined individual who thinks this government is nothing but a large easel on which to do his PR work,” Washington is heard saying.

This ad has dominated exchanges in the final days of the campaign past few days, making Quinn’s camp even more apoplectic as it was over the prison release attacks. Their response: This is a ludicrous attack considering the comptroller’s father Tom Hynes went all-out to oust Washington in the 1987 mayoral race. But there is no question that this is quite a damaging attack; if any readers follow Illinois politics closely, I would be interested in knowing whether this footage is new or whether it had already surfaced in past cycles.

Smelling blood, Hynes has been blasting Quinn on many issues, and This Sun-Times column captures the spirit of the race; it’s certainly not surprising Hynes has been so successful at demolishing Quinn’s reputation given his family’s prominent role in Illinois’s Democratic machine, which surely gives his camp experience in taking care of political business. In fact, Quinn seems to be thinking about his opponent’s father quite a lot these days, as the governor went afterTom Hynes directly in their latest debate. “I think Pat Quinn has become disoriented,” Hynes responded. “He thinks he’s running against my father. I know you’ve been in politics 30 years, but my father retired 15 years ago. Maybe you should, too.” You can sense these two Democrats will be great friends once the primary is over.

Hynes’s attacks have taken their toll: What two months ago looked like it would be an easy victory by the new governor has turned into a toss-up, and it is likely that Hynes is pulling ahead.

This morning, PPP released the first poll to find Quinn trailing; while the margin is only 41-40, the momentum is all on the comptroller’s side. Yesterday, a new Chicago Tribune poll already had found Quinn sinking, since his 44-40 lead compared very unfavorably to his 49-23 early December lead; of course, Quinn is particularly vulnerable because he was never elected governor, but that is still a brutal turnaround. Seeking to drive the narrative of his momentum, Hynes released an internal poll of his own finding Quinn with a 44% to 37% lead, as well as a dismal 36% to 60% approval rating among Democrats. (The Chicago Tribune’s numbers were much better for Quinn, 43-31, though the topline results are worse.)

On the Republican side, the primary is totally impossible to predict with no less than 6 candidates having a credible shot at the nomination. PPP’s survey finds Kirk Dillard, Andy McKenna, Bill Brady, Jim Ryan, Adam Andrzejewski all within 19% and 11%, with Dan Proft at 7%; the Chicago Tribune finds a similarly confused situation. (The primary does feature one ad worth seeing, as McKenna is now attacking Dillard’s Republican credentials because the state senator featured in an Obama ad during the 2008 Iowa caucuses.)

Senate

While it hasn’t gotten as personal as the Quinn-Hynes showdown, the Democrats’ Senate primary has gotten competitive as well. Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias was seen as the front-runner as soon as he entered the race, thanks in part to his statewide post and to the large fundraising muscle he demonstrated within weeks of his entry, and the latest surveys suggest he has managed to maintain his position. The Chicago Tribune has him receiving 34%, with 19% going to Cheryle Jackson and 16% to former Chicago inspector general David Hoffman; PPP has similar results, with Giannoulias at 32%, Hoffman at 20% and Jackson at 18%.

The airwaves have primarily been used by Giannoulias and Hoffman’s campaigns, since Jackson did not raise enough money to mount a major advertising offensive. (Note that Jackson is one of just a few candidates nationwide upon which rests the hope that the Senate will have at least one African-American member come 2011.) The challenge these candidates have faced is fairly simple: which candidate can best distance himself or herself from Rod Blagojevich’s shadow?

Hoffman has been particularly aggressive in attacking Giannoulias, tying him to Blagojevich by indicting his ethics and relating him to Tony Rezko, whose name you surely remember from the presidential race. “Who will take on Washington’s spending and Wall Street abuses? Not Alexi. He was chief loan officer when his family’s bank gave a million dollars to Blagojevich crony and convicted felon Tony Rezko, then let Rezko bounce a half-million in checks,” argues a recent ad:

Giannoulias answered with the usual shame-on-my-opponent-for-going-negative ad. Giannoulias has spent more time attacking on issues, notably going after Hoffman’s support for free trade and his stance that the Bush tax cuts should not expire until the economy improves. Is that enough to conclude that Hoffman is more of a moderate while Giannoulias is ideologically a mainstream Democrat? Well, Giannoulias has a corporate background, which got him a seat on the board of the Edgewater Chamber of Commerce, certainly not what progressives dream of in a senator; interestingly, Jackson has served on the board of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce.

Yet, it would be a surprise if the election is decided by any substantive difference between the candidates. Given Giannoulias’s background and the fact that Hoffman has constructed his entire career on building good government credentials, the former Chicago inspector general is clearly banking on Democratic voters wanting to throw out any suspicion that might befall them that they have not turned the page of the Blagojevich era; given Illinois’s recent history, we can sure forgive these voters if they’re having a hard time trusting any politician is clean, let alone a former bank manager as Giannoulias is. Jackson faces her own problem: she was Blagojevich’s spokesperson.

That said, I am not convinced that there is a clear electability difference between these 3 Democrats, though that is something we shall have a better idea of as the general election unfolds since it does not look like Democrats will avoid facing Rep. Mark Kirk. They would have liked nothing more than seeing conservative activists Pat Hughes upset Kirk in the GOP primary. Yet, Hughes never managed to become the new coming of Doug Hoffman, the best sign yet that Democrats’ post-NY-23 hope that Tea Partiers would give Republicans major headaches hasn’t materialized just yet. PPP showed Kirk crushing 42% to 9%; the Chicago Tribune had him leading 47% to 8%.