Final Tally

Cross-posted from ICPR's blog, The Race is On:

ICPR has posted our count of candidate fundraising totals through Noon today on our website. In the course of looking over the numbers, we found a few interesting bits:

Thomas Grusecki is back. The owner of Northern Homes gave Judy Baar Topinka $30K, his largest gift since the last round of statewide executive elections.

Mark IV Realty gave the Giannoulias campaign $48K in billboards (all of them, apparently, overlooking the Kennedy Expressway) over the weekend. They had the same arrangement with the Vallas campaign in the 2002 primary, and with Blagojevich in the 2002 General. The billboards run through the end of March.

Friends of Terrance J. O’Brien reported an in-kind of $4,725 from the Chicago Sun-Times. Did the newspaper really give the in-kind? It appears to be another O’Brien’s Restaurant ad which must have depicted Terrance J. O’Brien (who is running in the Cook County Dem Primary for Metro Water Reclamation District).

The Democratic Party of Illinois came in big time for Paul Mangieri, giving $127K over the weekend, all of it in-kind. Mangieri also shows a lot of in-kinds from sitting legislators, including Bob Rita, Frank Mautino, Mike Smith, Linda Chapa-Lavia, and others; nearly all of them downstate Dems. These look to be mailings to their own district touting the incumbent’s endorsement of Mangieri’s candidacy.