IL GOP takes aim at Gov. Blagojevich

DuPage County State’s Attorney Joe Birkett of Wheaton ...

"He doesn’t know how to lead — he’s never learned it," noted long-time DuPage County State’s Attorney Joe Birkett of Wheaton, a potential gubernatorial candidate and a speaker Saturday evening at the annual Lincoln-Reagan Day Dinner of the Grundy County GOP Central Committee.

"He was not a distinguished state representative, he did nothing of distinction in congress, and he was a ghost payroller when he worked for the state’s attorney’s office in Cook County. That’s what our governor is. No wonder our state is in such abysmal shape, with a man like that at the helm.” [...]

"We’ve got to light the fire of reform in this state — that we are not going to tolerate the climate or corruption that exists in Springfield and Chicago. Rod Blagojevich has broken every single promise he made to the voters in Illinois," Birkett said.

"He promised to change the way we do business in Springfield — the way we operate government. Well, he hasn’t ended it. It’s business ad nauseum as usual on steroids. He’s outpaced the former governor (George Ryan, GOP, Kankakee) by a margin of more than 3-1 in his ability to raise money from contracts and contributions. That’s intolerable." [..]

"We don’t have a revenue problem in this state — we have a spending problem. We need a governor who knows how to lead."

Bloomington-area state Sen. Bill Brady ....

"Last year, when we had to seek a candidate from outside the state to fill a vacancy ... I decided to position myself so that we didn't have the same problem putting forward our best candidate for defeating Rod Blagojevich," he said. "I believe that I am that candidate." [..]

"The pay-to-play politics of this administration are second to none in the nation," he said. [...]

"We need to rein in state spending, promote the economy so there will be more revenues without a tax increase, and promote revenues through growth so we can fund our schools," he said.

Ron Gidwitz ...

“We don’t have adult leadership in the governor’s mansion. We can hardly get that man to go to Springfield to take care of the peoples’ business,” Gidwitz said.

Gidwitz echoed Birkett in saying Blagojevich has no interest in making Illinois a job-friendly state.

"I love this state, and I’m fed up with what the governor is doing to it. He’s a career politician who makes decisions according to his career, not the families and children of Illinois," Gidwitz noted.

He said the state needs a leader with vision, and not one beholden to special interests and political insiders.

"A leader who will clean up the mess Gov. Blagojevich has made, and that’s precisely why I’m here today," Gidwitz said. "He’s wasting our tax dollars, raiding our pension funds, bankrupting Illinois, and he’s using the system where political insiders win and we all lose.

“It’s time for adult leadership in our governor’s mansion in Springfield."

The basic IL GOP line of attack against Gov. Blagojevich is ‘pay-to-play politics’, failure of ‘leadership’ and the standard tax spend liberal . All the candidates will use the same line of attack against the Governor leading up to the general election in 2006.

Headlines like this does not help Gov. Blagojevich refuting the ‘pay-to-play‘ attacks, Did gov's donor clean up in deals? or AP: Blagojevich Contributor Gets Contracts.

This might be a blue state, but this is still going to be a tight race for governorship of Illinois. Democrat Rod Blagojevich need to shape up for this race of this life now or it is going to be too late. Rod Blagojevich used corruption, pay-to-play criticism of the GOP to win the governorship and the GOP might use the same criticism to defeat the Governor. Oh the irony!