So, why did Judy Baar
Topinka go with a Chicago casino idea to help fund her education, property tax
and infrastructure proposals?
Well, a general tax
increase had all but been ruled out months ago. Polling and focus grouping
showed high levels of opposition to a tax hike. Plus, Topinka already has
enough troubles with her Republican base without doing something like that.
The campaign had already
proposed about $3 billion in Medicaid and other state spending cuts over four
years, but she can only back so many cuts. Topinka wants AFSCME's endorsement
and is on track to get the Illinois Education Association's nod. Her pursuit of
those tax eating groups and others like them makes it highly unlikely that
we'll see many more budget cutting ideas before November.
Topinka has strongly
opposed Gov. Rod Blagojevich's asset sale ideas, so that angle was out of the
question. Temporary solutions like the four-year infusion of cash from the
Lottery sale would make her look too much like Blagojevich, so forget that.
Pretty much all that was
left was gaming. Voters don't like gaming all that much, but when given the
choice of a tax increase for schools or a limited version of gaming expansion
like Topinka has proposed, they'll go with gaming more often than not,
particularly Republican and independent voters.
Promising something big to
Chicago's mayor never hurts, either. Now that Mayor Daley knows his schools
will get more money and his city will get more jobs and tourism he might not be
so eager to campaign extra hard for Gov. Blagojevich.
A better question than
"Why gaming?" might be, "Why did she propose any specifics at
all?" Challengers rarely set forth as many details as Topinka did last
week.
Money is one answer.
Chicago-area business leaders have been holding back on their checkbooks to see
what she would do. The biz types, just like the state's political press corps,
completely bought in to Gov. Blagojevich's constant harangue that Topinka's
campaign lacked substance because she didn't have any detailed plans. The other
reason is that since the primary Topinka's campaign hasn't exactly inspired a
whole lot of confidence and the business people needed to be convinced that she
was on the ball.
Still, I am always wary of
any candidates who please the pundits. All the early press reports and columns
claimed that Dawn Clark Netsch showed guts when she proposed a 42 percent
income tax hike in 1994. Glenn Poshard was said to have displayed supreme
integrity in 1998 when he refused to accept PAC contributions. Paul Vallas'
intelligence and straight talking honesty were universally hailed in Punditland
four years ago.
My first reaction to
Topinka's idea was, "I like the detail." Other reporters were
similarly impressed. But we're almost always wrong about this stuff, at least
initially. The political pros have a special knack for finding ways to turn the
opposition's grand ideals into repulsive garbage. Netsch was successfully
morphed from gutsy pol into an out-of-touch limousine liberal. Poshard was
eventually trashed for bending his own contribution rules. Vallas was allowed
to be falsely slimed and smeared. The reality of newspaper and TV stories is
not the same reality as campaign advertising. And most voters reside in that
latter realm.
Topinka's people may just
be naive, but I get the feeling that they don't think this will be a huge issue
come November. They've proven they can propose a four-year plan that
drastically increases education and capital spending and addresses the property
tax issue, so they can move on. And the governor may now be forced to come up
with his own ideas for holding the line on skyrocketing college tuition and
providing some relief for property tax payers. Gov. Blagojevich might also be
harshly confronted with his own hypocrisy - the same man who promised not to
expand gaming then tried to do just that not once but twice now accuses Topinka
of flip-flopping on casinos.
Also, September will
reportedly bring a slew of new stories about alleged corruption within the
Blagojevich administration. And that's the real Topinka campaign plan. To them,
this gaming proposal is mostly a sideshow, which is why it was introduced in August.
The idea is to shepherd one story after another into the media starting
sometime after Labor Day all the way through election day, and use that
material in all of their negative ads.
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Rich Miller also publishes
Capitol Fax, a daily political newsletter, and thecapitolfaxblog.com