Something not very funny, from Gov. Pat Quinn’s perspective, happened as he was skipping to an easy victory in the Democratic primary for governor. Just a few weeks ago, polls had Quinn leading his opponent, Comptroller Dan Hynes, by 20 points.
(UPDATE: Here’s the new Tribune poll)
(IEA’s primary recommendations are here)
Quinn’s problems began when an avalanche of post-Christmas bad press swamped his campaign, generated by an early release program that saw some prisoners who were sprung early for budgetary reasons ending up back in jail.
Quinn has tried to fight back by touting a Chicago cemetery scandal that he blamed on his opponent. He has been mostly unsuccessful in generating bad press for Hynes.
This week, as the early release story had played itself out, the Hynes campaign showed everyone what it had been keeping up its sleeve; 1987 video of Harold Washington, Chicago’s first black mayor, explaining that he fired Pat Quinn as his revenue director for being an incompetent self-promoter. See the Hynes TV spot.
As the Sun-Times’ Dave McKinney explains,
Quinn, at that point an up-and-coming government reformer, was brought on by Washington in 1986 to clean up the city’s scandal-plagued Revenue Department. But Washington canned Quinn in June 1987, alleging that Quinn engaged in grandstanding and repeatedly ignored orders.
“He went in there like a bull in a closet, wouldn’t do what he was told, which was to put the systems in there which I had discussed thoroughly with him,” Washington said, showing flashes of anger as he spoke. “No, he thought that department was a PR plantation, and he didn’t do his work. He was dismissed. He should have been dismissed. My only regret is that we hired him and kept him too long.”
For good measure, Washington called hiring Quinn his “greatest mistake in government.”
Some internal political polls in recent days reportedly showed Hynes pulling within 6-7 percentage points of Quinn as a result of Hynes’ release program media barrage. This ad, launched 12 days before the election, might be a game-changer.
As Washington’s former press aide told the Chicago Current blog,
“If I’m Pat Quinn, I’m s—ting my pants,” says Alton Miller. “It’s a total nightmare for any candidate who expects support from the African American community.”
The run-up to the February 2nd election should be interesting.