Topinka Drops A Bomb On Blagojevich

By vouchey in News on Mar 22, 2005 2:16AM

It's less than two years until the 2006 gubernatorial elections, and the playing field is beginning to shape up for the big race. Already we know two facts: Republican Illinois Treasurer Judy Barr Topinka is going to run, and Governor Rod Blagojevich is going to have a buckets of money to spend.

It all came to light in the Lynn Sweet's Sun Times column today when Sweet published the results of a poll Topinka conducted. It's a political columnist's constant temptation, printing partisan poll results, but they just can't resist. "I usually don't write about candidate polls because campaigns only want to reveal a few self-serving pages," Sweet cautions, but she picked out the parts Topinka probably wanted to publicize anyway. And then the bomb:

The poll showed that Blagojevich's approval rating was at 48 percent and his disapproval number at 45 percent.

That's pretty tough stuff, but really, there's a lot of time between now and Election Day, a lot of time for Gov. Blagojevich to get his message out, and apparently, a lot of money for the Gov. to get his message out. According to Pete (Brother of WLS Sports Guy Mark) Giangreco, political consultant to the Governor, the Governor expects to have $20 million in his campaign war chest for the next campaign. That's a ton of dough -- and since Chicagoist tends to see fundraiser invites now and then, it doesn't seem like the Gov. has really started seriously asking for money. That's when the money will really start pouring in.