Illinois Senate Race Revs Up Dirty Politics: Character Attacks

Honesty Attacks Escalate In Illinois Senate Race


The Illinois Senate race has turned into the midterm campaign’s liar-liar election, as Republican Rep. Mark Kirk and Democratic state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias intensify attacks on each others’ honesty in a race that was already among the country’s most gratingly negative.

Both candidates unveiled new ads this week building on charges they leveled during a weekend debate on NBC’s “Meet the Press”: Kirk challenging the Democrat’s description of his involvement in a failed family bank and Giannoulias undercutting Kirk’s presentation of himself as a fiscal conservative.


Giannoulias released an ad Tuesday that cuts almost 60 seconds straight from the NBC debate, showing Giannoulias going after Kirk’s support for the Bush tax cuts and blasting: “He said he's a fiscal hawk. Look, the congressman has told some real whoppers during this campaign, but that may be the biggest one of all.”

Kirk opened up on Giannoulias with a salvo of his own Wednesday, with a commercial questioning exactly when the state treasurer cut ties with the now-defunct bank owned by the Giannoulias family.

Kirk’s ad begins with a clip of Giannoulias saying, “You deserve a senator who will tell the truth” – before a narrator cuts in: “But Alexi doesn’t. He told newspapers he was gone when Broadway loaned millions to convicted felon Tony Rezko. But Alexi told the IRS he was there, to take a $2.7 million tax write-off.”

The Illinois race has hinged on ethics charges and counter-charges almost since the moment Kirk and Giannoulias captured their party’s nominations. Kirk has consistently attacked Giannoulias over his involvement with Broadway Bank, which gave loans to multiple organized crime figures before going under. Giannoulias has aimed his blows at Kirk’s character, citing multiple reports that the congressman exaggerated his military record and misrepresented his past employment in education.

A Chicago Tribune/WGN-TV poll taken at the end of September showed essentially a split decision on the honesty question, with a slight edge for Giannoulias. Thirty-five percent of voters said he was the more trustworthy candidate, versus 30 percent for Kirk.

The candidates’ new ads followed post-debate memos, released from both camps, outlining a new round of integrity-themed attacks.

Kirk’s campaign manager, Eric Elk, wrote Monday that the Republican would hammer Giannoulias for a evasive statement about Broadway Bank’s loans to criminals. Asked about Broadway loans to mob-linked figures, Giannoulias answered that he was unaware of “the extent of their activity,” prompting Elk’s attack: “Giannoulias has now admitted he knew to some degree that his mobster bank clients were involved in criminal activities – and still loaned them millions of dollars anyway.”

Michael Rendina, Giannoulias’s campaign manager, released his own memo hitting Kirk over a heavily hedged answer about whether he had erroneously claimed to have been shot at during a mission in Iraq.

“It was a direct yes or no question and once again Congressman Kirk gave no answer,” Rendina wrote. “Just as he has lied about his own military and fiscal record, Congressman Kirk used his appearance on Meet the Press to lie about Alexi's role in his father's community bank.”


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Sources: Politico, Youtube, Google Maps