Personal Asides: Jim Leahy Responds…As Does Another Reader on Topinka...Answers to the Trivia Contest…Carole Pankau and Jeff Berkowitz on “Political Shootout” Sunday.

Leahy.

Jim Leahy, grassroots coordinator for Jim Oberweis in the March primary election tried to respond to Dr. Paul Green’s analysis of the election on Reader’s Comments but couldn’t get through. He left this message on my e-mail.

“Brady did not attack Judy at all. The only attacks [by him] were directed to Oberweis. Oberweis ran the same ads downstate that he did in Chicago.

“Green forgot to list collar county Lake as an Oberweis win. And he seemed to gloss over Wheeling township. It happens to be the biggest GOP township in Cook. I also wonder why Green wants to downplay the other counties by bunching them together with DuPage? People like Green were on television saying Oberweis could not be elected because of the immigration issue and Judy Baar Topinka was the only electable candidate. It now seems that the people agree with Oberweis and that he was not so far to the right. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t think that if Oberweis or any other candidate but JBT were on the ballot, the GOP would be waltzing in to the Governor’s office in November.

“If you did not know the outcome, you would think Oberweis wasn’t close to Judy and that conservatives should just give in and be happy with the crumbs the `moderates’ throw from the table. Oberweis got 31.9 percent and JBT 38.2 percent.

“Professor Green [believes] the pro-life issue is a wash in Illinois . If you break it down to abortion on demand, abortion loses in a landslide. So `moderate’ must mean you believe that.”

Winnetkaelm@comcast.

Another reader, Winnetkaelm@comcast, who couldn’t get through on Reader’s Comments sends an e-mail as follows, responding to my comments several days ago on Topinka (which Lovie’s Leather said makes me sound like a reincarnation of the late Huey Long):

“I tried to respond to your excellent post today but it did not seem to go through. Here is my response;

“The only argument that the Combine gave in the primary for Topinka is that she was the most electable Republican. So far, she has been a dreadful candidate. I wonder who paid for the poll which wa used to acclaim here as the most electable Republican and whether it was biased. Oberweis could have run as a reformer; Topinka cannot.

“She comes from the George Ryan end of the party. These `moderate’ Republicans have been big spenders as governors. Why would she change her stripes once she is elected? She has nothing in common with the Republican conservative base. The only logical conclusion bvased on her history is that she will move left. Rush Limbaugh likes to say that Bill Clinton was the worst thing that could have happened to the Democratic party. He ran as a centrist in 1992 and tried to govern as a leftist in 1993-94. The result was the Democratic election implosion in 1994. George Ryan killed the Republican party in the 2002 election.

“Conservative Republicans need to take control of the party and cut spending in Illinois. Thje first task will be impossible with Topinka as governor. The second one will be unlikely. Her mentor, Edgar, ran in 1994 agailsnt Netsch on the stance that he would not raise the income tax. Two years later, he tried to pas a tax increase similar to what Netsch had proposed.

“Some Republican officials have asserted that Topinka has been a fiscally conservative Treasurer. Where is the evidence of this? She has much more in common with the Democrats than with the Republicans, The Democrats are the big spenders. Her mentors in the Republican party are big spenders. The safest conclusion is that she is a big spender. It is better to have a Democrat get the blame for high taxes and budget deficits and work to elect a conservative U. S. Senator in 2008 and a conservative governor in 2010 than to be saddled with Topinka as governor.”

If you have trouble getting through…and I don’t know why that is because we’ve tested it several times and it seems to work…email me with your comments and I’ll put them up here until we fix the problem. Thanks.

Trivia Answers.

Pat Hickey got two out of three which is wonderful for one not using a search engine. The answer to the first—who Samuel Johnson was talking about—is Edmund Burke. The second is Benjamin Franklin. The third is, indeed, Joan of Arc in Bernard Shaw’s immortal play, “Saint Joan.” Jesse Taylor got Saint Joan along with a number of you. Not bad! Congratulations.

Pankau and Berkowitz

State Senator Carole Pankau of Itasca, the Republican nominee for state Comptroller will be paired with aggressive TV journalist and blogger Jeff Berkowitz on “Political Shootout” Sunday at 8 p.m. on WLS-AM (890). I would hope to the end of my days that somebody could bring an end to the Democratic party’s favorite sons and daughters tradition…Lisa Madigan…Dan Lipinski…Todd Stroger…and Dan Hynes. With some luck and many prayers maybe Carole Pankau can do it. But that doesn’t mean she will get a free pass on the radio…as she knows. Probably the most incisive TV interviewer in the business, Jeff Berkowtz should be working in a network TV show…but the fact that he isn’t is our good fortune since he would be too high-hat to be on our show. Give it a listen.