Topinka Outed for un-Republican Views
Way back in 1998, Republican gubernatorial candidate George Ryan did a masterful job of outflanking Democrat Glenn Poshard -- on both sides. In the Chicago metropolitan area, Ryan declared himself a moderate, and he and his surrogates portrayed Poshard as a conservative extremist. Outside of Chicago, Ryan refered to himself as a conservative, and Poshard was attacked for his ties to liberals and progressive groups.
Frustrated Democratic operatives howled during the campaign about the media's failure to call Ryan on his self-contradiction.
And of course, frustrated Republican conservatives howled later on when Ryan raised license fees, vetoed pro-life legislation, backed equal rights for gays and lesbians, and placed a moratorium on the death penalty.
If Topinka had hoped to duplicate Ryan's success and run as both a moderate and a conservative, she may be out of luck, because it looks like news reporters are finally catching on.
Topinka was outed today for her un-Republican views in an AP story by Deanna Bellandi, appearing in the Belleville News-Democrat. The article notes Topinka's support for abortion rights, equal rights for gays and lesbians, immigrant rights, and her opposition to private school vouchers.
The News-Democrat serves St. Clair and Madison counties. Madison/St. Clair are often thought of as a Democratic stronghold, but the area is conservative (but not Alan Keyes conservative) and the two counties produced over 22,000 GOP primary votes in 2002, second only to Sangamon County and Winnebago County in downstate Illinois.
If the State Journal-Register, Rockford Register Star, Peoria Journal Star, Decatur Herald & Review, and Champaign News-Gazette ever pick up on this story, Topinka is going to have to decide which she is: suburban moderate or rock-solid Republican.
6 comments:
Sorry YDD, but your attempt to make an issue in the Repub primary won't go anywhere.
Sorry, but your article doesn't live up to your headline. It names 3 of the 5 Repubs running, so it wasn't merely the front runner.
Yes, some of her opponents want to make an issue of her common stance on some issues, but it's just them; Rod is making the case that she is different. See his NRA attack on her.
There is at least one issue on which Rod, Oberweis and Brady are all in agreement- they are desparately working together to stop Judy.
Go, Girl, Go!
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
The Sun Times headlines for two days have been covering the "Black Panthers" communist thug street gang including Bobby Rush. JBT publicly endorsed Congressman Bobby Rush (his wife is on the Treasurer's payroll) and he was Minister of Defense for the Panthers. She also endorsed Congressman Louie "the bomb thrower" Gutierrez who started as a Member of the communist FALN Puerto Rico party. She also endorsed Ald. Helen Schiller of the 46 Ward who ws Pres. of the SDS (Students for Democratic Society) who blew up the ROTC building at U of Wisc in Madison. (guards were killed) and was in the 1968 riots at the Dem. convention in Chicago.
Nice try YDD.
Hmmm…..a highly partisan Democrat attacking the only GOP candidate polling within single digits of Blago…..wonder what could be going on here.
Saying Topinka was “outed” by AP yesterday for being pro-choice and pro-gay rights is like saying…….well, I can’t settle on the wittiest and most appropriate analogy, but suffice it to say that those positions were already pretty well known within the GOP.
Are there culturally conservative Republicans in this state who not support her in either the primary and the general? Yes. Of course there are. Is it a sizable enough figure to worry about? I haven’t seen evidence of it in the polls yet.
AP "outed" JBT? Well, I guess spamming works, as there is at least one spam-spam-spam campaign likely tied to a GOP candidate with pics of Judy at the Pride Parade that I've seen. Why a blogger I know from a western state--with no ties in Illinois--got this, is strange. Then again, it isn't.
Blago would prefer the candidate I strongly suspect is hehind this campaign over JBT.
GOP
As of the Tribume poll time it was not well known what JBT stood for thus the focus on social issues. My view is that if most of the down state voters knew of her rides in the gay pride parade it would make them think twice.
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