Ill. candidate Jackson touts Senate fundraising, downplays Blago ties
Jackson
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - Cheryle Jackson announced today she has raised $354,000 in the past month toward her bid for the Democratic nomination for Illinois’ open U.S. Senate seat next year.
Jackson played up the number during a Springfield media event – while playing down her former ties to impeached and indicted ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich, for whom she served as press secretary for more than two years of his tumultuous tenure.
Jackson went on to become president of the Chicago Urban League, and has stressed her experience there as a solid foundation for a campaign based on job-creation. But of course His Royal Hairness is going to come up in just about every press conference.
“I left the Blagojevich administration three years ago,” noted Jackson. She dismissed her role there as merely “a spokeswoman.” (That’s overly modest; she was his communications director, in charge of the spokespeople, not to mention the message.) She described herself as one of “millions of Illinoisans who voted for the governor” before anyone knew anything was amiss.
In response to reporters’ questions, Jackson very clearly specified that she was never subpoenaed nor interviewed by federal agents, and never saw any indication of wrongdoing while on Blagojevich’s staff. It was a good, forceful answer — but what a question to have to expect for the next few months.
Jackson’s $354k raised so far isn’t a windfall by Senate campaign standards; primary opponents David Hoffman and Alexi Giannoulias have raised, respectively, about $900,000 and about $2.85 million.
But both those numbers come with caveats: More than half the money in Hoffman’s coffer is self-loaned. And — as the Post-Dispatch reported last weekend — Giannoulias has bolstered his own numbers with more than $300,000 funneled in from his state campaign fund through a legal but controversial process of refunds and re-donations.
“I’m not rich; I don’t own a bank,” Jackson said during the Springfield media event, referring to Giannoulias, who is a from a wealthy banking family.
Cheryle’s argument of “not being rich” would hold a lot more weight if Giannoulais had actually contributed any of his own money to the race so far. He hasn’t.
Also, $500K of Hoffman’s $900K came from himself. His family is wealthy from Geico Insurance fortune. Why isn’t Cheryle attacking him?
Bottom line is that Cheryle and Hoffman have both raised roughly the same amount of money and Giannoulais has more than doubled them.
Just what we need. Another politician from Chicagoan who is innocent as fresh snow. She is a tried and true politician from the state of chicago funded by the State of Illinois.
If voters can forgive Jim Ryan for his Stu Levine connections and Jay Hoffman for his Rod Blagojevich ties there is no reason Ms. Jackson-Robinson can’t be given a pass on Rod as well. She appears astute, and brings a fresh eye to the Illinois political scene. I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.
Wow! What a knock-out! She’s got my vote!!
Gosh, Kevin, where did my comment go? Let’s see, the PD allows commenters to call white people racists wearing white hoods but…
Nice!
Truthfully folks, she’s right. She didn’t have that much of a tie to Blagojevich when she was his press secretary. That’s because she might have been the worst press secretary for a major office holder I’ve ever seen in 33 years in being in politics.
She was practically I N V I S I B L E the whole time she had the job. She made a lot of money on the public dole and did nothing for it.
Jackson was pathetically AWFUL in that job in which she was not qualified to do.
Don’t vote for her based on that.