Don Gwinn
Moderator Emeritus
New Blagojevich ads attack Republican opponent
April 20, 2006 - More than six months before Election Day, the Blagojevich campaign launched a series of attack ads. The target is his Republican opponent Judy Baar Topinka.
The governor is taking full advantage of his massive campaign war chest to fill the airwaves with the first round of attack ads at a time when Topinka is still trying to recover financially from the cost of the Republican primary. One Blagojevich ad attacks Topinka for supporting President Bush's tax cuts, another for opposing a hike in the minimum wage and a third uses Topinka's own words to ridicule her opposition to additional gun control laws.
"It's very difficult to define what is an assault weapon. I mean, a rolling pin could be an assault weapon if you want to look at it that way," Topinka is seen saying in the ad. "She opposes a ban because she says it could ban a rolling pin? What is she thinking?" says a voiceover. "A rolling pin is not an assault weapon. It's an excuse to do nothing," says the governor.
The governor attacked Judy Baar Topinka's opposition to a ban on more assault weapons on two fronts Thursday, with new TV ads and a news conference in downtown Chicago with gun control activists who lost family members to gun violence.
"Mrs. Topinka's position on this is a hazard to public safety," said Steve Young, gun control activist.
"The people that are trying to shout this legislation down are far more interested in buying and selling guns than they are in taking care of us. We're the ones that are left to clean up their mess," said Bill Jenkins, gun control activist.
Blagojevich is paying for the multi-million dollar ad campaign with the most aggressive fundraising effort in state history, which continued Wednesday night with a big event at the Field Museum.
Topinka says, if the governor is serious about gun control, he should be in Springfield trying to pass legislation that she might support, if it's reasonable, instead of raising millions of additional dollars in Chicago.
"You have to physically get your caboose down to Springfield and make those things happen. It's just idle chatter," said Topinka.
"The guy doesn't show up for work. He's been AWOL on fiscal responsibility. The only thing Rod Blagojevich is good at is raising campaign cash," said Joe Birkett, ®-candidate for lt. governor.
"I would say we disagree and we believe that Governor Blagojevich has played by all the fundraising rules. He follows the rules. The same rules apply to everyone," said Sheila Nix, Blagojevich campaign spokeswoman.
The governor raised several million dollars at the Field Museum night, where he told a crowd of 3,000 supporters that he needs the money to let Illinois voters know what he is doing to help people and where his opponent stands on the issues.
Topinka won't be answering the attack ads with commercials of her own, unless her polling indicates the ads are helping Blagojevich and hurting her. She is expecting a lot of financial support from the Republican party, including President Bush.
She won't be answering because she started with very little cash compared to him and spent a lot of it on the Republican primary. He had something like $15 million in the bank last time I heard.
`Straight Talk' ad not quite straight
Town hall meeting not open to media
By Rick Pearson and John Chase
Tribune staff reporters
Published April 21, 2006
In a TV ad titled "Straight Talk," which debuted Thursday, Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich assails Republican challenger Judy Baar Topinka for opposing an assault weapons ban.
Though the ad is billed as Blagojevich talking tough at a community meeting, his campaign said the commercial and another criticizing Topinka for opposing a minimum-wage increase were shot at an unpublicized campaign event in front of about 50 people.
The two ads show Blagojevich, often looking directly into a camera, making comments critical of Topinka and touting his initiatives at what is labeled on screen as "Town Hall Meeting, 3/25/06."
Officials in the governor's office said Blagojevich had no public events that day. Campaign aides said the governor made the comments to people called by his campaign to come to Waters Elementary School, located just blocks from the governor's North Side home. No media were notified of the Saturday event at the public school, which was closed for the day, campaign aides said.
The ads feature Blagojevich in the gym but do not show any audience members.
Town hall meetings are a staple for politicians seeking to demonstrate, in a highly public way, that they care about voters' concerns. Often, politicians bring their own video crews with the idea that their remarks might air in future ads. Although some, including President Bush, limit attendees to ardent supporters, such events receive plenty of advance notice and are open to the media.
Doug Scofield, an adviser to Blagojevich's campaign, said it was the first town hall meeting Blagojevich has held as part of the campaign.
"There was nothing published to promote the meeting," Scofield said. "The campaign made phone calls."
He said Blagojevich intends to hold more meetings in the future and will invite the media to them.
The date of the event reveals that as early as four days after the March 21 primary election, Blagojevich was focused on taping ads attacking Topinka, who survived a bitter GOP contest.
The two ads featuring Blagojevich are part of a series of four 15-second ads that began airing on TV sets across Illinois in what may be the earliest attempt by an incumbent governor to try to define a November challenger.
Two other commercials feature Topinka at a March 8 televised debate among GOP primary contenders. One ad criticizes her for supporting an extension of Bush's tax cuts for "millionaires" while she called a higher minimum wage a "giveaway program." The other plays a portion of the debate in which Topinka contends that "a rolling pin" could be banned under some definitions of assault weapons that should be prohibited.
"What's she thinking?" a female narrator asks in both ads.
In the town hall meeting ads, Blagojevich responds by vowing to push for an increase in the minimum wage, which he also accomplished in his first term, and by contending that his challenger's comments about an assault weapon ban represent "an excuse to do nothing."
Blagojevich initially proposed a $1-per-hour increase to the state's $6.50 minimum wage one day after winning the March 21 primary, and his campaign said it would come in a second term. But Blagojevich also told reporters that day that he would push for the minimum wage increase if enough time remained in the General Assembly's spring session.
The Democratic-controlled legislature, which failed to adjourn by a self-imposed April 7 deadline, remains weeks away from settling upon a state budget, but no legislation has been introduced to enact the governor's proposed minimum-wage hike.
Topinka's running mate, lieutenant governor candidate Joe Birkett, said Blagojevich's use of "negative" campaign ads so early in the race was a "symptom of a campaign that's in trouble."
Birkett said he and Topinka think that increasing the minimum wage will hurt small businesses and run more jobs out of the state, a move that would hurt working families more than keeping the minimum wage at current levels.
Birkett, the DuPage County state's attorney, also said that if Blagojevich were truly serious about an assault weapons ban, he would have gotten it passed by now in the Democratic-controlled General Assembly.
Topinka has opposed an assault weapons ban that includes firearms citizens can own legally now. She used the example of a rolling pin to explain how difficult she thinks it is for lawmakers to come up with a definition of which weapons to ban.
The Blagojevich campaign said the ads would air statewide, including Downstate, where some voters have opposed the governor's support of gun-control measures. His campaign would not say how long the ads would run or how much money was spent to air them.
Illinois. Move out, its easier than you think.
