Posted by Rick Pearson at 5:50 p.m.
Former Republican Gov. Jim Edgar today decried TV attack ads against his favored candidate for governor, saying he thinks “the voters deserve better.”
“It’s unfortunate that we are again in the ‘silly season’ of the campaign,” Edgar said, in defending Republican governor candidate Sen. Kirk Dillard, a Hinsdale lawmaker who was his first chief of staff in the governor’s office.
The former governor largely was sounding off against ads being aired by GOP rival Andy McKenna contending that Dillard won’t rule out higher taxes. In a statement from Dillard’s campaign, Edgar noted Dillard “never voted for a general tax increase.” Dillard, however, did vote for a controversial suburban sales tax increase to help fund Chicago area mass transit.
While Edgar decried attacks ads, he made use of them when he was running for re-election in 1994.
Back then, Edgar created a mantra that Netsch supported a “42 percent income-tax increase” without mentioning that she also backed an accompanying reduction in property taxes. Later, in his second-term, he proposed a similar “tax swap” plan but it failed in the legislature.
Edgar also contended Netsch backed higher taxes “23 times” as a state lawmaker, though Republican lawmakers also often voted for those same taxes.
And Edgar attacked Netsch for wanting to abolish the death penalty as part of an overall soft-on-crime strategy that the Republican incumbent was able to use against the liberal Democrat. At the time, Netsch had said she would sign legislation to abolish the death penalty–but would uphold the law and didn’t expect the legislature to send her such a bill.