Eric wrote a very good column on what is going on in Pat Quinn’s head–which as of today appears to be just about nothing. Hmmmm…Donuts.
One is that Blagojevich was on the offensive quickly and relentlessly. Less than one month after the primary, he was on the air with a series of “What’s she thinking?” TV commercials attacking Topinka’s opposition to a hike in the minimum wage and to an assault weapons ban.
Even though Topinka was fairly well-known to voters — three-term state treasurer, suburban social moderate — the Blagojevich campaign defined her as an erratic extremist before she could define herself, thus forcing her to play defense through the summer and fall.
Quinn doesn’t appear to be fundraising, he doesn’t have a campaign manager, marginally has a campaign team, and has no field operation. What he did have was SEIU and some other unions who could work the ground for him and are now pissed at him. And he attempted to walk out and went the wrong way.
Quinn is running against one of the few Republicans he has a chance of beating with 10 percent unemployment, but he has to define his opponent. But he can’t do that with no money, no campaign, and no media. Bill Brady has said enough stupid things on a regular basis that I could make the What’s She Thinking? ads look like softball if you gave me some production staff and a few million in tv air time. Right now though, Quinn only has about 1 month until people check out for the summer and start to pay attention to politics again in late August or September. Why aren’t we seeing puppy gas chamber web ads at least?
If you recall, Blagojevich went largely dark over the summer because it would have been a waste of money, but the message with no response from Judy stuck and a crook who many of us screamed for a year before his reelection would be going to prison before the end of another term, won by 10 points. If Quinn had fundraised starting in February he could have put together just such a campaign for April/May against a weak fundraiser in Bill Brady. Instead, it appears Brady has hired a competent campaign manager who has his candidate gagged from saying anything too stupid for a while and is probably building a decent fundraising operation. On top of it, Brady had an okay field operation already. It was weak upstate, but he can reach his voters better than most of the other candidates which in a close race matters.
Then again, with things like $85,000 canoe czars we may not be talking about a close election. Oh, and the clown at Corrections is still in charge too. I may have been wrong the other day. It might not be a close race to lose, Pat Quinn may well be the ultimate loser who makes Brady look like an amateur.