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TMCNet: Judy Baar Topinka announces run for state comptroller: Former state treasurer, GOP gubernatorial nominee hopes name recognition will push her forward

[October 26, 2009]

Judy Baar Topinka announces run for state comptroller: Former state treasurer, GOP gubernatorial nominee hopes name recognition will push her forward

Oct 26, 2009 (Chicago Tribune - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Three years ago, Republican Judy Baar Topinka was vilified by then-Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich in an expensive series of TV campaign ads that ended with the political punch line, "What's she thinking?" After enduring a 10 percentage-point loss to a scandal-tainted and now ousted Blagojevich, and then joining the Regional Transportation Authority board, the former three-term state treasurer from Riverside launched her bid for a political comeback Sunday by seeking the Republican nomination for comptroller.

What's she thinking? "I can't stand to watch this mismanagement go on," Topinka, 65, told supporters who gathered at a West Loop restaurant. "Enough is enough, and it's time to put an end to the bookkeeping games and the gimmicks that are destroying the state. It's time to put an end to the deception and the corruption in this state that caused it." A 14-year legislator elected as treasurer in 1994, Topinka was the last Republican to hold statewide office before losing to Blagojevich. A former state GOP chairman, she won the 2006 Republican primary for governor. A month after losing the general election, she joined the RTA board.

While Topinka is likely to maintain some name recognition almost three years out of office, there are questions of how she will fare in a campaign season in which some candidates have adopted the theme of urging voters to make a clean break from the past.

"The voters know me. They know me. They know me, they trust me and I feel good about that because I've earned it," she said. "Jeepers, wouldn't you want a fiscal officer like that who's got that kind of experience ... at a time when the state is so fiscally inside out?" A social moderate and fiscal conservative, Topinka faced difficulties in trying to unify a still ideologically disparate Republican Party as its nominee.

Topinka said she would not tell voters "I-told-you-so" in raising the ouster of Blagojevich following federal corruption charges. Yet she indicated that voters might make that a consideration.

"I think they also understand what went on in the last election, because everything that I have said during the gubernatorial election has come to pass," she said. "I think people do realize that the state has taken a terrible turn for the worse, and they are going to turn to somebody who knows what they're doing." Topinka is one of three GOP candidates seeking the comptroller's seat being vacated by three-term Democrat Dan Hynes, who is running for governor. Other GOP candidates who have said they are running in the Feb. 2 primary are Jim Dodge, a Metra passenger rail system board member and Orland Park village trustee, and cable TV sports host William Kelly.

rap30@aol.com To see more of the Chicago Tribune, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.chicagotribune.com. Copyright (c) 2009, Chicago Tribune Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

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