Gov. Rod Blagojevich defeated Republican challenger Judy Baar Topinka to win a second four-year term as governor Tuesday, leading an Election Day sweep that gave Democrats complete control of state government.
With 77 percent of the state’s 11,692 precincts counted in the contest for governor, Blagojevich had 49 percent of the vote to Topinka’s 40 percent. Green Party candidate Richard Whitney had 11 percent.
Blagojevich’s victory came amid a swirl of scandal over federal and state investigations into allegations of wrongdoing in hiring, contracting and fundraising in his administration. But the Democrat was able to cast Topinka in a more unflattering ethical light, attacking her longtime Republican pedigree and association with disgraced former GOP Gov. George Ryan, a convicted federal felon.
The Democratic governor quoted from his beloved Elvis Presley and even Bachman-Turner Overdrive in his 11-minute victory address, first saying he was “all shook up” by his win, then telling the voters, “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
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Saying he would not coast in a second term, Blagojevich told about 500 supporters at his Northwest Side victory celebration, “Strap on your seat belts. Put on your helmets. Get ready to roll. We’ve got a lot more work to do for the people of our state.”
But Blagojevich couldn’t escape the controversies surrounding his administration even on his victory night. He answered reporters’ questions from the stage by saying, “I know I try to do the right thing and I believe in the truth, and I believe in doing the right thing, and everything else takes care of itself.”
With his victory, Blagojevich was the first Democrat to win election to a second term in 42 years. With their sweep of statewide offices, continued control of the General Assembly and a majority of seats on the Illinois Supreme Court, Democrats in January will control all three branches of government for the first time in 70 years.
Topinka’s loss marked the end of a 26-year public career, including a 12-year stint as state treasurer, where she was serving as the last statewide elected Republican official. She also was the last elected vestige of the moderate Republican leadership that had ruled the GOP and the state in the quarter-century before Blagojevich’s first victory as governor in 2002.
“I’m not here tonight as someone who has lost an election, but as someone who is grateful, really and truly, for the opportunity I’ve had to serve the public,” Topinka said. “I’ve had a great journey here and a great run.”
She wished Blagojevich luck: “That’s the way it goes. God bless him.”
Topinka’s loss raises new questions about the viability of a state Republican Party that has been beset by infighting between its moderate faction and conservatives who have long argued for a place in the GOP hierarchy. Following Ryan’s scandal-tarred tenure, conservatives sought to recast themselves as the reform wing of the party.
“It’s going to take us some time to rebuild,” conceded Rep. Tom Cross of Oswego, leader of the Republican minority in the Illinois House.
In other statewide races, Democratic Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan, Secretary of State Jesse White and Comptroller Dan Hynes all won re-election. In the lone open-seat statewide contest, Alexi Giannoulias won the race to succeed Topinka as state treasurer.
Madigan won a second term with 71 percent of the vote, compared with 25 percent for Republican challenger Stewart Umholtz. White, the three-term secretary of state, had 62 percent of the vote to 34 percent for Republican state Sen. Dan Rutherford of Chenoa. Hynes, a two-term state comptroller, had 63 percent of the vote to 33 percent for Republican state Sen. Carole Pankau of Itasca.
In the race for treasurer, Giannoulias, a Chicago banker, had 53 percent to 42 percent for Republican state Sen. Christine Radogno of Lemont.
Blagojevich’s campaign for re-election effectively began soon after he took office in January 2003 as the state’s first Democratic governor in a quarter-century. In March, he all but ignored primary challenger Edwin Eisendrath, a former Chicago alderman, and won the Democratic nomination with 70 percent of the vote.
During his first term he embarked on a series of social programs that were heavily marketed to the public, ensuring a positive message with blocs of potential voters ranging from women and laborers to war veterans and the elderly.
Health programs included expanded health care, state-subsidized health insurance and lower-cost prescription drugs. He also promoted a ban on explicit video games, an increase in the minimum wage and the creation of inspectors general under a new ethics law.
Blagojevich made unprecedented use of the resources of state government to promote himself. The promotion ranged from thousands of letters and e-mails sent to interest groups to tout his initiatives to specially made signs hanging over new open-road tolling lanes on the 274-mile Illinois Tollway system.
Though Blagojevich was lauded by various social interest groups nationally, his track record was spotty on several programs. His imported prescription drug plan was called illegal by the state auditor general and served fewer than 4,000 people. His video-game sales ban was struck down in the courts. His All Kids health insurance plan has largely ended up serving children who would have qualified under pre-existing medical programs. And a legislative proposal to radically reform campaign spending never got far beyond a news release.
Blagojevich entered the governor’s office with a wellspring of goodwill among lawmakers, particularly Democrats who controlled the General Assembly. But lawmakers became distrustful after he berated them for spending like “drunken sailors” and sent mixed signals on ideas such as increased gambling.
Some also expressed disdain for his rigid promise not to raise general taxes, which they felt limited the state’s ability to deal with school funding and other issues. Lawmakers ultimately required Blagojevich to be the first governor to sign memorandums of understanding to ensure that he would keep his budget promises on pork barrel spending–something he had vowed to eliminate.
Blagojevich’s promise to clean up corruption in state government was a central theme in his winning campaign four years ago, but his race for a second term was clouded by federal and state investigations.
Only weeks before the election, a top Blagojevich fundraiser and adviser, Antoin “Tony” Rezko, was indicted on federal corruption charges of attempting to squeeze kickbacks and campaign donations from firms seeking state teacher pension investment business. Another Blagojevich friend and top fundraiser, Christopher Kelly, was referred to in the subsequent plea agreement of political insider Stuart Levine. Rezko has pleaded not guilty. Kelly and Blagojevich have not been accused of any wrongdoing.
But the governor’s hurdles seemed low compared to the long, bumpy campaign trail for Topinka.
It was exactly one year before Election Day that Topinka began notifying Republican leaders that she was willing to make the run for governor, as perhaps the last standard-bearer for the old guard moderate wing that had long controlled the state GOP and Illinois government.
It was a run that she didn’t necessarily want to make, having strongly encouraged former Gov. Jim Edgar to try to regain his old job. Though he opted not to return to public life, Edgar’s long period of indecision helped freeze the candidacies of the other Republican primary contenders, allowing Topinka to quickly catch up when she entered the race against better-funded opponents.
After initially focusing on Blagojevich, the Republican contenders largely turned their attacks on Topinka, recognizing that her name recognition held far more sway with voters than money. By the end of the primary, voters were treated to ads showing her polka dancing with George Ryan–a precursor to the general election attacks that were to come.
She barely escaped the four-way primary contest, winning the nomination in March with about 38 percent of the primary vote, while conservatives split among businessman Jim Oberweis and Downstate Sen. Bill Brady, and moderate businessman Ron Gidwitz finished fourth.
The primary left Topinka’s meager campaign fund depleted and unable to compete against Blagojevich’s almost immediate onslaught of TV ad attacks. It also put her campaign on a largely defensive mode.
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Despite the support of Edgar and many of his former top aides, Topinka’s campaign had difficulty elevating its stature. Though she was a three-time winner of statewide contests, the spotlight of the governor’s race highlighted a quirkiness that served her well for lower office but raised questions in voters’ minds when they were considering a choice for the state’s top job.
While handlers tried to mute her well-known penchant for speaking her mind, she called her primary opponents “morons” in the waning moments of the primary and, in the final hours of the general election, she suggested Blagojevich should manage the Chicago Cubs because “they’re a bunch of losers too.”
Blagojevich’s incessant advertising campaign helped soften voters’ views of Topinka. The negativity and her penchant for attacking the governor only made it more difficult for her to articulate for voters a vision for the state.
Ultimately, Topinka’s campaign had hopes that in the myriad investigations of Blagojevich, federal prosecutors looking into his administration would accomplish more than any advertising or personal appearances could. But by the time Rezko was indicted and Kelly was referred to in a subsequent plea agreement, it had become just another tale of alleged corruption to many voters.
Topinka served as an elected official in the legislature and in the executive branch as state treasurer for more than a quarter-century. She also served a tumultuous term as state Republican chairman that saw conservatives replace a tarnished U.S. Senate nominee with the self-combustible import Alan Keyes.
Whitney’s involvement in the race largely reflected a dissatisfaction with the two major party candidates among voters rather than an endorsement of Whitney or the Green Party philosophy, according to public opinion polls.
A 51-year-old labor attorney from Carbondale, Whitney conducted a low-key, inexpensive campaign that, as an offshoot, appeared on course to get the Green Party at least 5 percent of the statewide vote. At that level, the Greens would be able to access the lower petition signature gathering requirements of the two major parties in the next election.
Whitney’s past became an issue in the final days of the race when he acknowledged he had been a top official in the national Socialist Labor Party during his 30s. Whitney said he was no longer a socialist, but he condemned the two major candidates as captives of a corporate-dominated culture.
Otto Kerner was the last Democratic governor to win re-election, in 1964. Kerner later went to federal prison on charges of corruption regarding racetrack stock in a prosecution led by James R. Thompson. Thompson went on to become the state’s longest-serving governor as a Republican and is an adviser to Blagojevich.
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