Republican gubernatorial candidate Judy Baar Topinka is somewhere in the middle on abortion issues. Because of that, both extremes hate her. Last week, Planned Parenthood and the pro-choice group Personal PAC held a press conference to urge reporters to find out whether Topinka is pro-choice or not.
The lesson of this story: Be careful what you say, because Washington, D.C., can be a very bizarre, mean, and unforgiving place. From: Tommy Vietor, Barack Obama press secretary To: Rich Miller Subject: Obama press release U.
I have two George Ryan-related stories for you this week. First, the irony of former Governor Jim Thompson's decision to defend former Governor George Ryan seems pretty obvious up-front, but there's more than first meets the eye.
Two new polls show pretty much the same thing: Illinois Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka is the only Republican with a solid lead over Governor Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat. An independent poll conducted by the Glengariff Group and a poll paid for by a Republican businessman both show Topinka leading the governor in head-to-head match-ups.
In my 15 years writing about Illinois politics, I've never had a better day at the Statehouse than last Wednesday. I'm probably biased because that was the day the World Series champion White Sox came to Springfield.
Federal investigators didn't make it easy for Governor Rod Blagojevich last week. On his big day, when he tried to turn around his political fortunes with "All Kids," a major new public-health-policy initiative formally unveiled in front of a joint session of the General Assembly with most of the state's media in attendance, the feds dropped yet another subpoena.
A friend of mine asked me the other day why I stopped being a Cubs fan five years ago and converted to the White Sox. There were many reasons, but the most important one is that I had grown tired of rooting for a team that didn't seem to care about winning.
Something a bit out of the ordinary happened earlier this month. On Saturday, the Chicago Tribune published a story about a relatively minor allegation of corruption at the Illinois Department of Children & Family Services (DCFS).
If there was any doubt that Governor Rod Blagojevich will use his dramatic new health-care program for children as a core issue in his upcoming re-election campaign, a flier handed out to state employees last week made things perfectly clear.
After months of indecision, former Republican Governor Jim Edgar finally announced Friday that he wouldn't run for Illinois governor. Edgar's months-long decision-making process often strained the patience of many political insiders, but it created an excitement that was too thick to cut with an ax.

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