Friends of ours: Frank Calabrese Sr., Nicholas W. Calabrese, Tony "The Ant" Spilotro, Joey "The Clown" Lombardo
Friends of mine: Frank Calabrese Jr.
Attorneys for a reputed mobster said Friday it would be "morally repugnant" for jurors at his upcoming trial to hear about telephone conversations with his wife that were tapped by federal investigators.
"This case involves enough of a distasteful spectacle due to the fact that the defendant's son and brother may testify against him," attorneys for Frank Calabrese Sr. said in papers filed in U.S. District Court. Calabrese, 69, of Oak Brook is among 14 defendants charged in the FBI's wide-ranging Operation Family Secrets investigation of 18 mob murders that went unsolved for years.
Brother Nicholas W. Calabrese, 63, of Chicago also is charged and son Frank Calabrese Jr. may take the witness stand at the trial currently scheduled for May 2007. Calabrese Jr. is not charged in the case.
The court papers said it would be "morally repugnant to see the defendant's spouse on the witness stand and the government attempting to reveal confidences" that were exchanged in telephone talks between them while she was at home and he was in the federal prison at Milan, Mich. "These conversations revolved around family matters and other family business," the court papers said. One such discussion in May 2000 concerned an alleged break-in at wife Diane Calabrese's Wisconsin home.
The Family Secrets case is the result of the biggest mob investigation in the Chicago area in decades. Among the murders involved is that of Tony "The Ant" Spilotro, the Chicago "Outfit's" longtime man in Las Vegas, who was killed and buried in an Indiana cornfield in an act of mob vengeance.
Defendants include Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo, the reputed mobster known for his zany sense of humor who went on the lam after the indictment was returned and became the target of an intense FBI manhunt. Agents captured him in suburban Elmwood Park in January.
Sunday, July 23, 2006
Thursday, July 20, 2006
James Woods Inspired by Mafia
James Woods is using his childhood memories of Mafia negotiations to form his new hardball TV attorney character, Sebastian Shark. The revered movie star will portray the charismatic legal eagle fighting to bring Los Angeles' most powerful people to justice in new drama SHARK.
Woods admits he only had to recall secret FBI/Mafia meetings his aunt set up in his youth to prepare for the role. He explains, "When I was a kid, my aunt was secretary to the public defender for 28 years and I was around the legal system. "She was sort of the Switzerland of Rhode Island, and Rhode Island was what we used to call the parking lot of the Mafia. "Whenever the Mafia wanted to talk to the Feds (FBI) or the superior court judges, or whatever, they always did it through my aunt. "I learned early on that justice is a lot about negotiation. It's not dissimilar from our business in Hollywood. It's full of a lot of strange and scurrilously awful people who somehow manage to keep the wheel going. "That's how this character operates."
Woods admits he only had to recall secret FBI/Mafia meetings his aunt set up in his youth to prepare for the role. He explains, "When I was a kid, my aunt was secretary to the public defender for 28 years and I was around the legal system. "She was sort of the Switzerland of Rhode Island, and Rhode Island was what we used to call the parking lot of the Mafia. "Whenever the Mafia wanted to talk to the Feds (FBI) or the superior court judges, or whatever, they always did it through my aunt. "I learned early on that justice is a lot about negotiation. It's not dissimilar from our business in Hollywood. It's full of a lot of strange and scurrilously awful people who somehow manage to keep the wheel going. "That's how this character operates."
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Married to The Ice Man
Friends of ours: Richard "The Ice Man" Kuklinski
Barbara Pedrin was a naive 19-year-old Italian Roman Catholic girl who lived in West New York and rarely dated - until one night in the early 1960s.
That night, "I did a friend of mine a favor and went on a double date," she said last week. "He was seven years older and very good looking. He couldn't have been more of a gentleman. We went to the movies at Journal Square in Jersey City, then for pizza. I never thought I would see him again."
Little did Barbara Pedrin know that the 26-year-old man she met that night would later become her husband - and one of the most notorious murderers in United States history.
Because on that night, Barbara Pedrin went on a date with Richard Kuklinski, a man who would later be known as "The Ice Man," the famed Mafia hit man who reportedly killed as many as 200 people over the years, before he was apprehended in 1986 and died earlier this year.
Recently, a new book was released on the "Ice Man" by Philip Carlo: "The Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer" (St. Martin's Press). The book has caused some controversy because of Kuklinski's boasts in it, including saying he was involved in the death of former Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa.
In an exclusive interview last week, Barbara Kuklinski talked about living with her husband.
Barbara Kuklinski lived in North Bergen until she was 9. She moved to West New York, and today lives in Dumont in Bergen County. She still goes by her husband's name, even though she divorced the serial killer five years after he was convicted of a handful of murders.
One of his murders included a North Bergen ice cream salesman. That man and other victims were subsequently stored into a freezer, earning Richard the name "The Ice Man."
Barbara Kuklinski said that her controlling relationship with the Ice Man began on the day after the first date. "On the day after that first double date, my mother came to get me to say that the fellow I was with last night was at the door," Barbara Kuklinski said in an exclusive interview. "He was there with flowers and candy at about 1 p.m. that next day. We went to Journal Square again, and then all of sudden, he was there every single day. No one ever paid attention to me like that before."
However, it didn't take long for Barbara Kuklinski to realize that Richard was not your average paramour. "He stabbed me in the chest once with a little knife as a way to say that I was his forever," Barbara Kuklinski recalled. "He said, 'I know your mother doesn't want you to go out with me, but you're going to marry me.' He said that if I didn't marry him, he would kill my mother and sister. So I married him out of fear."
Once they were married, Richard and Barbara Kuklinski made West New York their home in a two-family house owned by her mother. All three of their children (a son and two daughters) were born while they resided in West New York. They moved to Dumont in 1971, where Kuklinski bought a home.
Barbara Kuklinski insists that she never had an idea that her husband was a mass murderer. "He always worked," Barbara Kuklinski said. "He always tried to provide for his family. He always had a second job, driving a truck, doing what he had to. He always aspired to make more money. In the early parts of our marriage, I got him a job with Twentieth Century Fox, where he carried a brown bag to work and he brought home the money." But she had no idea that he was making extra money as a paid hit man for the Mafia. "He was extremely private," Kuklinski said.
Her ex-husband died in a prison hospital earlier this year and is now the subject of a new book, "Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer," written by Philip Carlo and released by St. Martin's Press earlier this month.
"No one came to the house," she said. "He had his own telephone number. When he wasn't in the house, the door to his office was locked. He didn't call anyone his friend. When he got up in the middle of the night and left, I never asked him where he was going. He always had legitimate businesses, as a wholesale distributor, as an accountant. When he went to Europe, he said it was to do currency exchange deals. I never knew anything. He definitely kept his home and his family apart from what he did." But Barbara Kuklinski knew that something was not right with her husband.
"He was a raging psychopath," Kuklinski said. "That pretty much covers it. He would constantly abuse me, slashing me, throwing things at me. He was so huge, strong and frightening. But he loved me. I have no doubt about that. He never hurt my children. He was insane. Someone asked me why I didn't leave him early on, but there was no leaving. I wish there was some magic that would have made him go away. I know there are thousands of abused women who walked in my shoes and didn't walk away."
Added Kuklinski, "With Richard, it wasn't so much rage. It was control. He wanted to control everything. He was just a sick man and I have the scars to prove it."
Kuklinski said that she never had a clue that Richard Kuklinski was carrying out the assortment of murders, both for his own enjoyment and the paid ones for the mob, according to Carlo's book. "I didn't have a single hint that was going on," Barbara Kuklinski said. "Not a clue." However, Barbara Kuklinski got clues soon enough when federal officials moved in. Kuklinski was allegedly taped by an undercover police officer while trying to set up another contract killing.
In December, 1986, Richard and Barbara Kuklinski were grocery shopping after having breakfast, when the federal officials moved in to make the arrest. "We were driving down the street when a van came right at us," Barbara Kuklinski said. "I think they wanted to make sure I was in the car, so this way, he wouldn't do anything crazy. They came out of the van, some 30 or so officials. They jumped on the hood of the car and pointed guns through the windshield and each window. They got him out the car and put leg shackles on his wrists. They pushed me to the ground."
At first, Barbara Kuklinski was taken into custody as well, because there was a gun inside the car. "He remained silent while we were being arraigned," Barbara Kuklinski said. "He never said a word. I then heard from one of the detectives that he was being held for $2 million bail. I kept saying, 'What for? What did he do?' And one of the detectives said, 'Murder. We have him for murder.' I saw Richard as he was being brought to [Bergen County] jail and asked him what was going on and he said, 'Don't even worry. I'll be home soon.' " But Richard Kuklinski never came home.
He stood trial and was convicted for two murders and was sentenced to life in Trenton State Prison. While in prison, he confessed to the string of hired murders, complete with gruesome details that have been written about in Carlo's book.
"Richard never told me anything," Barbara Kuklinski said. "At first, he never admitted to anything. But when I heard the transcripts in court, I was mortified and couldn't believe them. I then asked him, 'Did you do those things?' and he said, 'Yes.' He said, 'I did things they'll never know.' Once I heard his voice, that's when I believed him."
Barbara Kuklinski said that she divorced the "Ice Man" in 1993, after he was in Trenton State Prison for six years. "Actually, he divorced me for money reasons," Kuklinski said. "Money is a wonderful thing. I actually [had] wished he had dropped dead when we were together. I still would go to see him in prison, but after we were divorced, I only went like once a year with my daughter."
When two HBO documentaries came out on the "Ice Man," with Kuklinski being interviewed about some of the gruesome murders he committed, Barbara Kuklinski was stunned. "It was incomprehensible to me that he could talk about all those things with no feeling and no remorse," Barbara Kuklinski said. "I really couldn't believe it."
She still keeps his last name. "I'm not going to change my name," she said. "Neither will my children. But we're known as Richard Kuklinski's family and now we're treated like dirt. My e-mail address starts 'Just me' and that's who I am and still who I am. I'm just me. I don't like confrontation and I don't like the publicity." She added, "Am I ashamed that I was married to him? No. I didn't do anything wrong. I wish people had sorrow for me and my children. Believe me, we cried for all his victims."
Barbara Kuklinski has not remarried since her divorce to Richard. She still resides in Dumont and has been trying to get on with her life. "It's taken a long time to heal," Kuklinski said. "I'm not totally over it and I still can't believe it. I still have nightmares about him. But I'm doing fine and the kids are all doing OK. I'm not afraid anymore, that's for sure. He's dead. He's gone. It's over. He can't hurt anyone else anymore."
Thanks to Jim Hague
Barbara Pedrin was a naive 19-year-old Italian Roman Catholic girl who lived in West New York and rarely dated - until one night in the early 1960s.
That night, "I did a friend of mine a favor and went on a double date," she said last week. "He was seven years older and very good looking. He couldn't have been more of a gentleman. We went to the movies at Journal Square in Jersey City, then for pizza. I never thought I would see him again."
Little did Barbara Pedrin know that the 26-year-old man she met that night would later become her husband - and one of the most notorious murderers in United States history.
Because on that night, Barbara Pedrin went on a date with Richard Kuklinski, a man who would later be known as "The Ice Man," the famed Mafia hit man who reportedly killed as many as 200 people over the years, before he was apprehended in 1986 and died earlier this year.
Recently, a new book was released on the "Ice Man" by Philip Carlo: "The Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer" (St. Martin's Press). The book has caused some controversy because of Kuklinski's boasts in it, including saying he was involved in the death of former Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa.
In an exclusive interview last week, Barbara Kuklinski talked about living with her husband.
Barbara Kuklinski lived in North Bergen until she was 9. She moved to West New York, and today lives in Dumont in Bergen County. She still goes by her husband's name, even though she divorced the serial killer five years after he was convicted of a handful of murders.
One of his murders included a North Bergen ice cream salesman. That man and other victims were subsequently stored into a freezer, earning Richard the name "The Ice Man."
Barbara Kuklinski said that her controlling relationship with the Ice Man began on the day after the first date. "On the day after that first double date, my mother came to get me to say that the fellow I was with last night was at the door," Barbara Kuklinski said in an exclusive interview. "He was there with flowers and candy at about 1 p.m. that next day. We went to Journal Square again, and then all of sudden, he was there every single day. No one ever paid attention to me like that before."
However, it didn't take long for Barbara Kuklinski to realize that Richard was not your average paramour. "He stabbed me in the chest once with a little knife as a way to say that I was his forever," Barbara Kuklinski recalled. "He said, 'I know your mother doesn't want you to go out with me, but you're going to marry me.' He said that if I didn't marry him, he would kill my mother and sister. So I married him out of fear."
Once they were married, Richard and Barbara Kuklinski made West New York their home in a two-family house owned by her mother. All three of their children (a son and two daughters) were born while they resided in West New York. They moved to Dumont in 1971, where Kuklinski bought a home.
Barbara Kuklinski insists that she never had an idea that her husband was a mass murderer. "He always worked," Barbara Kuklinski said. "He always tried to provide for his family. He always had a second job, driving a truck, doing what he had to. He always aspired to make more money. In the early parts of our marriage, I got him a job with Twentieth Century Fox, where he carried a brown bag to work and he brought home the money." But she had no idea that he was making extra money as a paid hit man for the Mafia. "He was extremely private," Kuklinski said.
Her ex-husband died in a prison hospital earlier this year and is now the subject of a new book, "Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer," written by Philip Carlo and released by St. Martin's Press earlier this month.
"No one came to the house," she said. "He had his own telephone number. When he wasn't in the house, the door to his office was locked. He didn't call anyone his friend. When he got up in the middle of the night and left, I never asked him where he was going. He always had legitimate businesses, as a wholesale distributor, as an accountant. When he went to Europe, he said it was to do currency exchange deals. I never knew anything. He definitely kept his home and his family apart from what he did." But Barbara Kuklinski knew that something was not right with her husband.
"He was a raging psychopath," Kuklinski said. "That pretty much covers it. He would constantly abuse me, slashing me, throwing things at me. He was so huge, strong and frightening. But he loved me. I have no doubt about that. He never hurt my children. He was insane. Someone asked me why I didn't leave him early on, but there was no leaving. I wish there was some magic that would have made him go away. I know there are thousands of abused women who walked in my shoes and didn't walk away."
Added Kuklinski, "With Richard, it wasn't so much rage. It was control. He wanted to control everything. He was just a sick man and I have the scars to prove it."
Kuklinski said that she never had a clue that Richard Kuklinski was carrying out the assortment of murders, both for his own enjoyment and the paid ones for the mob, according to Carlo's book. "I didn't have a single hint that was going on," Barbara Kuklinski said. "Not a clue." However, Barbara Kuklinski got clues soon enough when federal officials moved in. Kuklinski was allegedly taped by an undercover police officer while trying to set up another contract killing.
In December, 1986, Richard and Barbara Kuklinski were grocery shopping after having breakfast, when the federal officials moved in to make the arrest. "We were driving down the street when a van came right at us," Barbara Kuklinski said. "I think they wanted to make sure I was in the car, so this way, he wouldn't do anything crazy. They came out of the van, some 30 or so officials. They jumped on the hood of the car and pointed guns through the windshield and each window. They got him out the car and put leg shackles on his wrists. They pushed me to the ground."
At first, Barbara Kuklinski was taken into custody as well, because there was a gun inside the car. "He remained silent while we were being arraigned," Barbara Kuklinski said. "He never said a word. I then heard from one of the detectives that he was being held for $2 million bail. I kept saying, 'What for? What did he do?' And one of the detectives said, 'Murder. We have him for murder.' I saw Richard as he was being brought to [Bergen County] jail and asked him what was going on and he said, 'Don't even worry. I'll be home soon.' " But Richard Kuklinski never came home.
He stood trial and was convicted for two murders and was sentenced to life in Trenton State Prison. While in prison, he confessed to the string of hired murders, complete with gruesome details that have been written about in Carlo's book.
"Richard never told me anything," Barbara Kuklinski said. "At first, he never admitted to anything. But when I heard the transcripts in court, I was mortified and couldn't believe them. I then asked him, 'Did you do those things?' and he said, 'Yes.' He said, 'I did things they'll never know.' Once I heard his voice, that's when I believed him."
Barbara Kuklinski said that she divorced the "Ice Man" in 1993, after he was in Trenton State Prison for six years. "Actually, he divorced me for money reasons," Kuklinski said. "Money is a wonderful thing. I actually [had] wished he had dropped dead when we were together. I still would go to see him in prison, but after we were divorced, I only went like once a year with my daughter."
When two HBO documentaries came out on the "Ice Man," with Kuklinski being interviewed about some of the gruesome murders he committed, Barbara Kuklinski was stunned. "It was incomprehensible to me that he could talk about all those things with no feeling and no remorse," Barbara Kuklinski said. "I really couldn't believe it."
She still keeps his last name. "I'm not going to change my name," she said. "Neither will my children. But we're known as Richard Kuklinski's family and now we're treated like dirt. My e-mail address starts 'Just me' and that's who I am and still who I am. I'm just me. I don't like confrontation and I don't like the publicity." She added, "Am I ashamed that I was married to him? No. I didn't do anything wrong. I wish people had sorrow for me and my children. Believe me, we cried for all his victims."
Barbara Kuklinski has not remarried since her divorce to Richard. She still resides in Dumont and has been trying to get on with her life. "It's taken a long time to heal," Kuklinski said. "I'm not totally over it and I still can't believe it. I still have nightmares about him. But I'm doing fine and the kids are all doing OK. I'm not afraid anymore, that's for sure. He's dead. He's gone. It's over. He can't hurt anyone else anymore."
Thanks to Jim Hague
Monday, July 17, 2006
"The Unreformer"
Friends of ours: Joe "the Builder" Andriacchi
There's only one politician in Illinois who can make Republican gubernatorial candidate Judy Barr Topinka look like a reformer: Gov. Rod "The Unreformer" Blagojevich.
Blagojevich, a Democrat, is also known as "Official A." But that one is on the tongues of rampant speculators who read federal court documents. I'd rather stick to "The Unreformer." It's folksier.
Topinka is looking better by comparison because Blagojevich is being pounded by a scandal a day, with federal investigations of state pension deals, patronage hiring and contract cronyism.
So Judy should be playing "Lady of Spain" on her accordion, waltzing nimbly toward the governor's mansion, correct? Perhaps not.
Blagojevich has entertained the taxpayers of Illinois since he took office as a reformer with the backing of his now estranged father-in-law Ald. Richard Mell (33rd). One of the governor's first reforms was to hire Joe Cini, a City Hall guy from the mayor's Department of General Services, as state patronage chief.
Cini came to my attention in those heady reform days when Blagojevich put Bill Fanning on the Illinois Gaming Board. In 2004, Fanning took part in a mysterious board vote to support a casino in Rosemont, something former Gov. George Ryan wanted as business as usual. But state and federal investigators said a Rosemont casino might not be prudent.
Some Rosemont casino investors were tied to Mayor Richard Daley's City Hall, like Sue Degnan, wife of Daley's political brain Tim Degnan. She was listed, most curiously, as a disadvantaged minority. But the reason the FBI didn't like Rosemont had to do with something else. Investigators believed some Rosemont casino investors had ties to the Chicago Outfit.
After the vote, I learned Fanning was a former shirttail relative of reputed Outfit boss Joe "the Builder" Andriacchi. When I started asking around, he quietly told board members he knew Andriacchi only slightly, then he was quietly let go.
The Blagojevich administration, in full reform mode, quickly fingered Cini as the one who recommended Fanning. And last year, when the indictments of Daley's patronage chief Robert Sorich made news, Blagojevich was asked about patronage armies and reform. He told reporters he called Cini "just to make sure" there was no patronage going on.
"I called up our patronage ... [here Blagojevich stopped in midsentence remembering that patronage meant `business as usual'] "He's not even that. He's intergovernmental affairs director, we even changed the name, and just to get some reassurance ... and his answer kind of summed it up: Of course we don't do those things," Blagojevich said in October of 2005.
Lo and behold, now Cini is under federal investigation for "those things." It was detailed in a fascinating Tribune scoop on July 2 by Tribune reporters Ray Long, Rick Pearson and John Chase. They reported how Blagojevich's own inspector general denounced the administration in a report for subverting state patronage laws, including violating provisions designed to give military veterans preference in winning state jobs. "This effort reflects not merely an ignorance of the law, but complete and utter contempt for the law," wrote Blagojevich's first executive inspector general, Zaldwaynaka "Z" Scott.
Since then it's been story after story, with Blagojevich on the defensive, desperately shaking hands at parades, head bobbing furiously like one of those dolls they give out to the first 10,000 fans at the ballgame, loudly insisting he's a reformer. He says he's glad to hear about the problems, because that way he can fix them. But while Rod is perceived as a phony, Judy can't seem to get much traction. Perhaps that's because Republicans know her too well.
More than half of all rank-and-file Republicans who voted in the primary voted for other candidates. They see Topinka as the handmaiden of the Republican side of the Illinois combine, a creature of party bosses. Included among these is "Big" Bob Kjellander, the Republican National Committee treasurer who scored millions of dollars in finder's fees from Illinois state pension deals under the Blagojevich administration. How's that for bipartisanship cooperation?
Folks trying to explain her problems with conservative Republicans often mention her liberal social views, her support of gay rights and abortion. That's part of it, but a small part.
The core Republican vote is angry over Illinois political corruption and the taxes and the Kjellanders. They know that Topinka, as chairman of the Illinois GOP, helped drive former U.S. Sen. Peter Fitzgerald out of politics. She refused to endorse him for re-election though he was the incumbent, because Fitzgerald had the audacity to bring politically independent federal prosecutors to Illinois.
Topinka's bosses didn't like that. But the rank-and-file sure did. So even though Blagojevich's troubles delight the Topinka camp, they must be haunted by this:
Rank-and-file Republicans aren't well organized. They allow themselves to be divided. But like elephants, they never forget.
Thanks to John Kass
There's only one politician in Illinois who can make Republican gubernatorial candidate Judy Barr Topinka look like a reformer: Gov. Rod "The Unreformer" Blagojevich.
Blagojevich, a Democrat, is also known as "Official A." But that one is on the tongues of rampant speculators who read federal court documents. I'd rather stick to "The Unreformer." It's folksier.
Topinka is looking better by comparison because Blagojevich is being pounded by a scandal a day, with federal investigations of state pension deals, patronage hiring and contract cronyism.
So Judy should be playing "Lady of Spain" on her accordion, waltzing nimbly toward the governor's mansion, correct? Perhaps not.
Blagojevich has entertained the taxpayers of Illinois since he took office as a reformer with the backing of his now estranged father-in-law Ald. Richard Mell (33rd). One of the governor's first reforms was to hire Joe Cini, a City Hall guy from the mayor's Department of General Services, as state patronage chief.
Cini came to my attention in those heady reform days when Blagojevich put Bill Fanning on the Illinois Gaming Board. In 2004, Fanning took part in a mysterious board vote to support a casino in Rosemont, something former Gov. George Ryan wanted as business as usual. But state and federal investigators said a Rosemont casino might not be prudent.
Some Rosemont casino investors were tied to Mayor Richard Daley's City Hall, like Sue Degnan, wife of Daley's political brain Tim Degnan. She was listed, most curiously, as a disadvantaged minority. But the reason the FBI didn't like Rosemont had to do with something else. Investigators believed some Rosemont casino investors had ties to the Chicago Outfit.
After the vote, I learned Fanning was a former shirttail relative of reputed Outfit boss Joe "the Builder" Andriacchi. When I started asking around, he quietly told board members he knew Andriacchi only slightly, then he was quietly let go.
The Blagojevich administration, in full reform mode, quickly fingered Cini as the one who recommended Fanning. And last year, when the indictments of Daley's patronage chief Robert Sorich made news, Blagojevich was asked about patronage armies and reform. He told reporters he called Cini "just to make sure" there was no patronage going on.
"I called up our patronage ... [here Blagojevich stopped in midsentence remembering that patronage meant `business as usual'] "He's not even that. He's intergovernmental affairs director, we even changed the name, and just to get some reassurance ... and his answer kind of summed it up: Of course we don't do those things," Blagojevich said in October of 2005.
Lo and behold, now Cini is under federal investigation for "those things." It was detailed in a fascinating Tribune scoop on July 2 by Tribune reporters Ray Long, Rick Pearson and John Chase. They reported how Blagojevich's own inspector general denounced the administration in a report for subverting state patronage laws, including violating provisions designed to give military veterans preference in winning state jobs. "This effort reflects not merely an ignorance of the law, but complete and utter contempt for the law," wrote Blagojevich's first executive inspector general, Zaldwaynaka "Z" Scott.
Since then it's been story after story, with Blagojevich on the defensive, desperately shaking hands at parades, head bobbing furiously like one of those dolls they give out to the first 10,000 fans at the ballgame, loudly insisting he's a reformer. He says he's glad to hear about the problems, because that way he can fix them. But while Rod is perceived as a phony, Judy can't seem to get much traction. Perhaps that's because Republicans know her too well.
More than half of all rank-and-file Republicans who voted in the primary voted for other candidates. They see Topinka as the handmaiden of the Republican side of the Illinois combine, a creature of party bosses. Included among these is "Big" Bob Kjellander, the Republican National Committee treasurer who scored millions of dollars in finder's fees from Illinois state pension deals under the Blagojevich administration. How's that for bipartisanship cooperation?
Folks trying to explain her problems with conservative Republicans often mention her liberal social views, her support of gay rights and abortion. That's part of it, but a small part.
The core Republican vote is angry over Illinois political corruption and the taxes and the Kjellanders. They know that Topinka, as chairman of the Illinois GOP, helped drive former U.S. Sen. Peter Fitzgerald out of politics. She refused to endorse him for re-election though he was the incumbent, because Fitzgerald had the audacity to bring politically independent federal prosecutors to Illinois.
Topinka's bosses didn't like that. But the rank-and-file sure did. So even though Blagojevich's troubles delight the Topinka camp, they must be haunted by this:
Rank-and-file Republicans aren't well organized. They allow themselves to be divided. But like elephants, they never forget.
Thanks to John Kass
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