Is Blagojevich worried? Should he be?

Last night, as usual, I watched the local late news at 10 pm, and smack dab in the middle of it came a commercial break featuring not one, but two anti-Topinka ads within a two-minute span.

And more entertaining, they featured her supposed connections to the President: the first ad indicated she was running due to Karl Rove's influence (Ah, of course! The Rovian conspiracy to turn Illinois into a red state from top to bottomus!), and the second one showed how Topinka had said she supported "President Bush's tax cut for the wealthy, but opposed raising the minimum wage" saying something about government handouts (I can't quote the whole ad. It was late and I was feeling a little under the weather, as usual).
Of course, they neglected to point out that every time the minimum wage is increased, it makes it harder for the poor to get jobs, so what good does a raised minimum do the unemployed?

But I digress.

Topinka, it seems to me, has a hard row to hoe. She has to drag her name away from any connection to former Governor Ryan and the corrupt mess he left behind, without disconnecting herself from her own solid experience in government office. She could, very easily, come to the public and make clear how the national economy has been aided by the President's tax policies, and how, with increased tax burdens on the state of IL, we have gone a-tumblin' down, economically... It would be easy to show how Bush has gone right with his economic plan, and that could seriously boost Topinka in the polls, if she has half a brain.

Rod, on the other hand, has not had terribly great control of the state budget... it seems to me that our own community just recently announced that everything they'd paid into the state pension fund for our police force was going to have to be paid all over again, since the Blowdried One and his pals in the legislature went on a wild spending spree last year, offering great tax breaks to new businesses up in the Chicago area, and screwing more of us downstate in Forgottonia, again. Under G-Rod's guidance, the state cancelled countless scholarships, so a dozen highly-qualified young minds were left unfunded for higher academia. Blago has blown us off down here for programs, cut funding and mandates for offices for Department of Human Services, so some of the poor have to drive an hour in order to meet with caseworkers. Our swell fellow in Springfield continued to allow cuts to mental health facilities downstate, so there are more and more of my friends not getting the help we all need. Blowdriedovich has yet to open the prison in Thomson, IL, which had been slated to open the first year he took office, promising to employ several hundred local folks in security and support industry.

I am so very tired of our state operating business as usual. I am tired of Blago, his combination of ineptitude and corrupt cronyism, his not-at-all-benign neglect of us downstate as he encourages more and more wasteful spending in Springfield to pad his Chicago pals' pockets.

I'm not sure that Topinka would be much of an improvement, since she shows herself to be, too often, farther to the political left than our current man-in-charge, but I am beginning to wonder if she would at least strive for fiscal responsibility. An Illinois politician with a view to the bottom line... hmm. Wouldn't that be a total switcheroo?

Probably just a Rovian plot.