Looking to gain an 11th-hour edge in an increasingly hostile contest, five of the six candidates running for governor faced off in back-to-back televised debates Thursday, with Republicans Corinne Wood and Patrick O’Malley lobbing attacks at the man who wasn’t there–front-runner Jim Ryan.
Though they’ve been beating up on each other for weeks, Democratic rivals Rod Blagojevich and Paul Vallas shied away from sharp attacks in appearing with fellow candidate Roland Burris. Instead, all three appeared weary of the campaign and of each other.
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Ryan, who had previously vowed to appear in three debates and no more, was on his way to campaign in northwest Illinois and did not attend the event on WTTW-Ch. 11. But Wood and O’Malley made his absence the focal point of their appearance, seeking to link the attorney general to the licenses-for-bribes scandal that led to Gov. George Ryan’s decision not to seek re-election.
Using the term “Ryangate,” O’Malley contended that before a federal investigation was launched, Jim Ryan had received documents from whistleblowers detailing information about licenses exchanged for bribes under George Ryan’s tenure as secretary of state but did nothing.
“Mr. Ryan, what did you know, when did you know it, why didn’t you do anything based on the information that you had in any way, shape or form in the most serious corruption that has ever taken place in the history of the State of Illinois–where people died?” O’Malley asked.
Wood, who like O’Malley is trailing Jim Ryan badly in most public opinion polls, chimed in that the information made the attorney general “unelectable” in the fall. If his Republican rivals didn’t attack him, the eventual Democratic nominee most surely would, she declared.
Jim Ryan has maintained that the documents O’Malley is using to buttress his claim show that the FBI was already looking into the scandal when the attorney general’s office received the information. The attorney general has contended that it would be fruitless to conduct a parallel investigation.
Despite running a TV ad in which George Ryan’s face morphs into Jim Ryan’s visage, O’Malley closed the Republican portion of the debate by maintaining that he and Wood have not been guilty of negative campaigning.
“The reality is, we’ve been playing nice,” O’Malley said.
Wood has accused Jim Ryan of accepting “kickbacks” for his campaign fund from lawyers who hold state contracts to act as assistant attorneys general. She said she was using attack ads because of the shots Ryan had taken at her. “At some point, you just have to say enough is enough,” she said.
On the Democratic side, Burris stepped up his efforts to be perceived as a political peacemaker as he asked Blagojevich and Burris to end weeks of sniping at each other. “Will you all both pull your negative commercials?” Burris asked. “Pull ’em. We need to come together to win in November.”
Neither made such a commitment, and both defended their campaigns as “issue oriented.”
That said, Blagojevich in recent days has used a mailing to homes throughout the area that attempts to portray Vallas as vacillating on abortion rights while he headed the Chicago Public Schools.
Vallas had promised to end a $500,000 contract for a Planned Parenthood program aimed at reducing teen pregnancies. He said it was because he believed the schools should not provide funding to any outside group for sex education sponsored by either abortion-rights supporters or opponents, though he said such groups are welcome to pay for the programs on their own.
“Basically, I opposed funding any of these groups,” he said.
Blagojevich contended Vallas “tried to kick Planned Parenthood out of the schools” to appease conservatives who support abstinence teaching.
Before the debate, the Democratic candidates turned the portal outside Mayor Richard Daley’s City Hall office into a revolving door as they hoped for his backing.
Blagojevich and Vallas each met with Daley in hopes of securing a late endorsement. But both left saying Daley had committed to being neutral in the race for governor. Burris said he was scheduled to meet with Daley on Friday.
Burris, meanwhile, unveiled a new radio ad that is airing on stations with a predominantly African-American audience that features a mock confrontation between a black motorist and a police officer over the issue of racial profiling.
“Driving while black,” Burris says in the ad. “We all know that racial profiling is happening in our state and we need to stop it now.”
Burris, a former attorney general, was the first African-American elected to statewide office and is counting on strong support from black voters. But Burris denied the ads were aimed at African-American voters. “We’re not doing anything differently,” he said. “We’re campaigning in all communities.”
In the Republican race, Ryan also launched a new radio spot featuring former Gov. Jim Edgar to counter Wood’s and O’Malley’s attack ads. In the ad, Edgar says “desperate charges” are being made by Ryan’s opponents, and he calls the attorney general an official with “a reputation of integrity that is unmatched.”
But a Ryan supporter who was a state prison warden was demoted Thursday and faces further discipline for sending an e-mail earlier this week to other prison employees about working on a phone-bank operation this weekend to help the attorney general’s campaign.
A spokesman for the governor said Decatur Correctional Center warden Billie Greer was disciplined for her actions.
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