State Treasurer

The Chicago Tribune has been looking closely at Democrat candidate for Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias:

Many of the biggest donors to Democratic state treasurer candidate Alexi Giannoulias also received millions of dollars in loans from his family's Broadway Bank--some making their campaign contributions within weeks or months of receiving the loans, a Tribune analysis shows.

Giannoulias has received nearly $300,000 in campaign contributions from 19 donors who held a combined $200 million in bank loans, according to campaign disclosures and other records. They were among the 42 donors outside of his family who gave at least $5,000 each as of June 30.

No banking or campaign laws prohibit Giannoulias, Broadway's vice president and senior loan officer, from turning to his bank's borrowers for donations.

Giannoulias said Monday that he had "absolutely not" pressured any of those borrowers to donate. "There's no correlation between these loans and the state treasurer's office," he said. "They're not contributing because they want to do business with the state."

Just a coincidence, really.

First, Christine Radogno.

Not sure if Alexi Giannoulias has anything new planned soon, but his primary spot went over really well...he may recycle it. The Obamarama factor you know.

Consider this an open thread on the State Treasurer's race.

Democrat Candidate for Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias' father has passed away.

(Hat tip: Rep. Fritchey)

UPDATE:  Sen. Christine Radogno, out of respect for her opponent, is canceling campaign activities for the next few days, included a speech scheduled for Wednesday in Champaign at the regular County GOP meeting.

Prior to the primary I noted that Alexi Giannoulias' name did not appear on the State Democratic Party website. I just assumed that it would appear after he won the primary. I was wrong.

Republicans are lucky to have such a strong candidate for Treasurer.  She may have been able to win against a unified Democratic Party.  But with all the infighing over Alexi, she now has to be a favorite.  Good for the party and good for the state.  Also good for those who like to see the redistribution of wealth.  With all his problems, Alexi will no doubt be required to redistribute much of his wealth to printers, television stations, radio stations, and assorted other entities.

First, watch these. There are some real highlights in this. Judy's knocks...Blago's lines. I have a hard time telling who won the first debate. Blago was better when he stayed on script. But when they went off script, Judy hit him hard. Your opinions here. (Thanks Rich Miller for the link)

I was in Springfield yesterday and one topic that came up was Democratic State Treasurer candidate Alexander Giannoulias.   The question is whether the dirt coming out will result in Alexi making an alexit from the race.

I don't doubt that it could happen.  Certainly, Barack Obama would love to see that.  No one has a bigger stake in Alexi dropping out than Obama.  (Favorite Obama quote on Alexi:  "One of the most outstanding young men I could ever hope to meet.")  Mike Madigan also wouldn't mind seeing him off the ticket.  It would give him an excellent chance to find someone for the ticket that doesn't have D-Chicago next to his name.  He wanted a downstater in the first place, but his candidate, Paul Mangieri lost the primary.  An alexit would logically place Mangieri on the ticket, who resides a whopping 40 miles south of Interstate-80, Illinois' version of the Mason-Dixon line.  This makes Mangieri a “southerner” to people in Cook County and a downstater to the rest of us.

But this won't be simple for the Democratic leadership.

First, this differs from the Jack Ryan withdrawal.   Jack Ryan had a problem that was personally embarrassing.  He had an incentive to drop off the ticket to prevent six months of stories about sex clubs.  Giannoulias appears to have some politically embarrassing items, but nothing that will cause him to cringe when he shows up at the country club.

Second, there isn't anything Madigan or Obama can offer Giannoulias.  He's a multimillionaire.  A case can be made by Giannoulias that the embarrassment of dropping off the ticket would be much greater than the embarrassment of hearing about his loan portfolio for the next six months.

Third, while Obama must really want him off the ticket, Madigan's interest isn't as great.  On balance it's better, but if Giannoulias doesn't drop off, Madigan still has a candidate who is willing to self fund his campaign to the tune of millions of dollars.  Giannoulias has also somehow endeared himself to the black community.   Replacing him with another white male might cause the Democrats more trouble with the black community than it's worth.

Depsite these problems, Giannoulias is no sure loser in the fall.  Christine Radogno has her work cut out for her regardless of what the Dems do.

I think it's rapidly becoming clear that Alexi Giannoulias, the Democrat nominee for State Treasurer, needs to better explain his ties to criminals before he should be trusted with taxpayer funds.

Giorango's Broadway loans, first raised by the Democratic Party after Giannoulias, 30, announced he was challenging the party's choice for the March 21 primary, could be a continuing campaign issue for the candidate as he faces Republican state lawmaker Christine Radogno of Lemont in the November general election for treasurer.

When the Tribune first interviewed Giannoulias in March, it was about loans made by the bank before 2002. In that March conversation Giannoulias called Giorango "a very nice person" but noted the loans were approved before he graduated from law school and joined Broadway full time.

Giannoulias also said in March that Broadway Bank "never financed any casinos. We never did anything like that."

The Tribune interviewed Giannoulias again last week after newly obtained records showed the more recent Broadway loans, including a $3.6 million mortgage that Giorango and another convicted felon used to acquire a casino boat marina in Myrtle Beach, S.C.

"I thought it was for condos," Giannoulias said of the waterfront property that secured that loan. "It's a loan that I don't know the details of, obviously."

Read the entire story.  I don't often agree with the Democratic Party of Illinois, but in this case, I do:

State Democratic Party officials, who supported another candidate in the primary, highlighted the Giorango connection in a glossy mailer that said, "With friends like these, we don't need Alexi Giannoulias in charge of the state's bank accounts."

And:

Asked in the recent interview if he thought it was acceptable for the state treasurer to lend money to crime figures, Giannoulias said the state treasurer must get "the best rate of return for taxpayers to create jobs."

Mark my words:  endorsing this guy will be Sen. Obama's first major blunder.

This was the best of a bad batch of pictures I took at Republican headquarters last night.  This is Sen. Christine Radogno, candidate for Treasurer, speaking.  I need lots of practice with the camera, and even more with composition.

Sen. Christine Radogno, Republican candidate for Treasurer, will be in Champaign tonight for the Republican Central Committee meeting at Republican Headquarters, 106 West Springfield, Champaign, at 6:45 PM.  Feel free to stop by if you're interested.

The first post after a hiatus is a doozy:

The larger point here is that the liberal Chicago wing was willing to support Mangieri when they thought he couldn’t win – but once the nature of the race changed, they clearly couldn’t stomach the thought of a conservative leaning downstater getting a clean shot at higher office in Illinois.

And that is a huge problem for the Illinois Democratic Party.

It is to House Speaker (and State Party Chariman) Mike Madigan’s credit that he gets this, and actively sought a downstate candidate for the Treasurer’s position.

But then, Mike Madigan has always known how to count.

Madigan knows that without the conservative, pro-life, pro-gun Democrats in the General Assembly, the party couldn’t hold either chamber – in fact, they would be the minority party statewide. He knows that they are an essential part of the Democratic coalition.

I've always thought Speaker Madigan was the smartest politco in Illinois, and by a long, long margin. 

But IL Pundit's (no relation) post is great - read the whole thing. 

Tom Kacich is speculating that next year's GOP ticket could be too heavily weighted toward downstate:

Here's how that could play out:

For governor Bill Brady, Bloomington
For lieutenant governor, Raymond Poe, Springfield
For attorney general, Stewart Umholtz, Tazewell County
For secretary of state, Dan Rutherford, Chenoa
For treasurer, Christine Radogno, LaGrange
For comptroller, Carole Pankau, Roselle

I'm all for downstaters on the ticket, but if the GOP comes up with a team that is 67 percent downstaters -- where there is less than a third of the statewide vote -- they're in trouble.

I think that scenario is a little unlikey, as Brady is well behind Topinka and Poe might not even be in the race on Monday.  That said, I could very well envision a ticket that is half-downstate and half-Chicagoland - which is much, much better than the most likely Democratic ticket which will be entirely from The City.

All at the last minutes, but the slots are being filled with good candidates.

Lemont state Sen. Christine Radogno likely will seek the Republican nomination for Illinois treasurer, allowing the GOP to round out its statewide ticket.

For those of you keeping track at home, the GOP ticket is shaping up like this (credible candidates only): 

• Governor:  Brady, Gidwitz, Oberweis, Rauschenberger and Topinka.
• LG:   Poe and Wegman
• SOS:  Rutherford
• AG: Umholtz
• Comptroller: Pankau
• Treasurer:  Radogno and/or Weinberg

By my count, that's five sitting State Senators, one State Rep, a couple of County officials and some from the private sector.  Given the state of the Illinois GOP two years ago, I'd say that's about as strong a ticket as I reasonably expected, although having Edgar at the top would have been nice.  We're a little weaker in one spot than I'd like, but significantly stronger at SOS than I thought we'd be.  All in all, I'm looking forward to 2006 - if the GOP can pull together.

Knox County (Galesburg) State's Attorney Paul Mangieri announced his candidacy yesterday, and now State Rep. John Fritchey is thinking about running.  It sounds like this race might get interesting, too:

What surprised me in the article was the flippant tone of Knox County State's Attorney Paul Mangieri's comments. It's one thing to have an air of confidence, as you should, even if you were tapped to pitch because there was nobody left on the bench. But it doesn't strike me as smart politics to gamely take a reporter's bait, and in so doing, deride "Chicago liberalism" (is he talking about the Speaker?) or more so, "the courage of the convictions" of myself or others by not getting into the race at the time of slating. If he doesn't get that the race is wholly different now than it was, he is missing something. And I don't know if that is a quality that I am comfortable with in any of our candidates.

Of course, there currently is no GOP candidate, so this will probably amount to just another wasted opportunity.

The GOP statewide ticket might finally be inching towards completion.

UPDATE:  Thanks to an alert commenter, I've updated the headline to reflect that Pankau is thinking about running for Comptroller, not Treasurer.

I don't know what to make of it, but I got several tips from normally solid sources, all with the same message:  State Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka is going to run for Governor.  No details, no information about when an announcement might occur.  Just the statement.

It almost feels coordinated.  And it's odd enough that I'm posting about it even though I normally wouldn't without some details.

So take it for what it's worth - but I believe Topinka's in, and that something will confirm that quickly.

Rumor is that Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka will annouce at 1 PM today her intentions to run for Treasurer or Governor.  Speculation has been that she is leaning heavily towards running for Treasurer.

Rich Miller has the latest on the upcoming decision by Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka about running for Governor.
 

From Chicago Sun-Times Columnist Lynn Sweet:

State Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka set an end-of-week deadline to reveal her decision on running for governor -- but as of today, the answer is no.

Topinka, 61, the only Republican statewide officeholder, instead is looking at a bid for a fourth term as treasurer, where she can still be a major player in state policy.

I'd be very happy if Judy Baar Topinka ran for re-election as Treasurer, and not for any ideological reasons.  I think that if she's involved in the Gubernatorial Primary, she'll be the natural target of all the other candidates, things will get ideological and nasty, and regardless who wins, the GOP will be too divided to defeat Blagojevich.  I think it'll be much, much easier for the GOP to unite behind Rauschenberger or Brady.  Now, hopefully, we can avoid handing our nomination to either of the rich buffoons.

From the Daily Southtown:

Illinois Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka, the only Republican to hold statewide office, said Monday she'll announce within a week whether she plans to run for governor.

At this point, I don't really care if Topinka runs for Governor or Treasurer.  I think the Republicans already have at least two candidates who can beat Governor Blaogojevich already in the race, and I think if Topinka runs, the Primary might quickly devolve into moderate versus conservative ugliness.  I think if Topinka stays out, it'll be easier for the GOP to unite behind either Rauschenberger or Brady after March.