Posted: January 17, 2010

Between now and February 2nd we'll be republishing some of our stories about Judy Baar Topinka from the 2006 campaign. Topinka is as unacceptable now as she was then. Last time too few heeded the alarm bells. We said the loony lefty couldn't win, even against a scandal plagued Democrat. We were right then and we're right today.

[Originally Published: December 22, 2005]  When you hear the bell-ringer and walk by one of those Salvation Army Red Kettles this Holiday Season, consider being a little more generous than usual this year. Thanks to Judy Baar Topinka, the Salvation Army has lost some financial help for its fine work on behalf of the poor in Cook County.

 

Topinka was instrumental in making the Gay and Lesbian Center on Halsted a reality in Chicago. Her State Treasurer's Office provided a state $10 million link deposit to start construction of the Gay and Lesbian Center on Halsted.

 

Of course the State's financial resources are finite, and program dollars allocated to one use means that fewer dollars can be available elsewhere. We can explore whether the Gay and Lesbian Center was really the best place for Topinka to direct $10 million of the State's resources from the Link Deposit Program in a future installment. And maybe Topinka can expound on her stewardship of state resources regarding this matter on the campaign trail.

 

But because of the Gay and Lesbian project Topinka helped put in motion, other reallocations followed. A major one involved approximately $300,000 per year that Cook County government formerly granted to the Salvation Army to support youth services in Chicago. That $300,000 now goes to the Center on Halsted, instead of to the Salvation Army.

 

So yes, Cook County government has to be held accountable too. But let's face it, Cook County is run by liberal Democrats. No one should be surprised when they support a liberal cause. No one is shocked that Cook County government would choose a Gay and Lesbian project over the work performed by a faith-based organization like the Salvation Army.

 

But what happened to the idea of a Republican providing a check-and-balance? Our fearless State Treasurer - who wants everyone to believe she is fiscally conservative - is not only refusing to stand-up to the Democrats, she's in cahoots with them. This is just one more example. Not only is she working with the left on a liberal cause - she's been the ringleader on the Gay and Lesbian Center.

 

Topinka was not only instrumental in getting State financial help directed to the Gay and Lesbian Center, she was at the facility's groundbreaking. Topinka stood side-by-side with all the big Chicago Democrats turning over the soil with her little shovel.

 

Topinka's Chickens Coming Home to Roost

 

The Gay and Lesbian Center is located in the heart of what's known in Chicago as "Boys Town" on the north side of the city. It's in this neighborhood, and actually down the same street, Halsted, that the annual Gay Pride Parade travels.

 

As everyone knows by now it's the Gay Pride Parade that Topinka supports every year, riding on her own float. As far as we know, she's always the lone Republican.

 

As a side note, Topinka reportedly got the idea for helping with the Gay and Lesbian Center from a friend, the owner of a gay bar in Boys Town called Sidetrack. It's at this gay bar where Topinka typically meets-up with gay supporters every year before the Gay Pride Parade. Topinka also has other campaign events at Sidetrack during the year. Reportedly it's a hoppin' place. A gay travel magazine ranks Sidetrack in a first place tie with a New York venue as "Best Gay Bar in America." [OutTraveler magazine readers' poll]

 

In 2004, Topinka rode in this parade just two days after she and her Old Guard pals succeeded in pushing the duly-elected Jack Ryan off the ballot for U.S. Senate. Sitting atop her float waiving at well-wishers, while surrounded by barely covered gay men engaging in all manner of simulated homosexual sex acts (you don't have to stray too into the crowd to witness actual ones), Topinka seemed at peace with her conscience. Even the hanging of President Bush in effigy by at least one parade entry for his support of traditional marriage didn't seem to bother Ms. Topinka.

 

So maybe Topinka's supporters say, "hey, that's all fine, she's a moderate, live and let live."

 

But here's what Topinka said around that same time in the summer of 2004 regarding Jack Ryan and her participation in Jack's crucifixion. This is from a transcript of Topinka's appearance on the PBS television news show, Chicago Tonight where she was being interviewed by one of the hosts.

 

Topinka:  No, I don't think there is any way that a party that runs on Family Values could have had Jack Ryan and his experiences and even-and I know what happens in custody battles-but even if his wife said half of what she said under Oath-there was just no way you could sell him as a candidate, no way, I mean he [Jack Ryan] did not pass what I would call the "ick" factor, and that was very important.

Elizabeth Brackett: Had you been deceived by Jack Ryan about what was in those divorce records?

 

Topinka: Well, that was pretty heavy stuff. And, I mean I did ask him. I know that Jim Edgar did. We all asked him. We were told there was nothing there, even to the night before they were released. That there was nothing there that would be embarrassing. Now frankly, most gentlemen, most husbands do not try to force their wives to have sex in front of other people in a public place with shackles and whips and mattresses on the floor, I mean that is just not going to play. Now if both of them wanted to do it-sex, between a married couple, is their business, but it is obvious that this woman [Jack Ryan's ex-wife, Jeri Lynn Ryan] did not want to have anything to do with it-she was very public about it, there was no way that this was going to play.

 

A couple of things. First, Topinka's wild statement that "most husbands do not try to force their wives to have sex in front of other people in a public place" reveals Judy's hand. When Jack Ryan's divorce files were released, lo and behold, there was NO such accusation of "forced sex".  That false accusation had been made by another campaign operative, friendly to Topinka's camp. That man, Rod McCullough claimed that he had actually previously seen the divorce file, and he prepared an avadavat that included several bombshells about what the file contained. One of the accusations was that the file included allegations regarding "forced sex".

 

But then the divorce file is released, and we find that McCullough's most damning claims weren't even in the file, including the one about forced sex. (As a sidenote, Mr. McCullough was recently indicted in DuPage County on election fraud charges in a completely unrelated matter.)

 

Jack Ryan's divorce file comes out, and it's greeted by a big yawn from the public. Everyone said, well this isn't so bad - we had heard there were all these horrible things. Plus, everyone knows someone who has gone through a bitter divorce.  Things get said.

 

But Jack Ryan was designated for destruction so the attackers had to refocus. Topinka and Jim Edgar now said Jack had to go because he wasn't honest with them in a phone call about the contents being "embarrassing to the Party."

 

Jack finally just threw in the towel. Who can blame him? How could he possibly have a chance when his own Party's "leaders" were so intent on saying or doing almost anything to make certain their real friend, Barack Obama would win?

 

Topinka and Edgar can try to pin Alan Keyes on conservatives all they want. The simple truth is that it was their obsession with destroying Jack Ryan and disenfranchising Republican primary voters that was wholly responsible for last year's massive train wreck. And in any case, it was the State Central Committee that Topinka Chaired at the time that chose Alan Keyes. Conservatives, and everyone else for that matter, were allowed zero input in the replacement "process." Topinka actually refused to open-up the process to Republicans - even to those who were on the winning side with the real nominee Jack Ryan.

 

So Much for Family Values

 

But here's the real doozy from Topinka in that Chicago Tonight interview from the summer of 2004: "I don't think there is any way that a party that runs on Family Values could have had Jack Ryan and his experiences . . . I mean he did not pass what I would call the "ick" factor, and that was very important."

 

Wait, aren't "family values" something those "right-wing conservatives" preach about? Isn't Topinka supposed to be one of those "moderates"? Or is it preaching about family values one day, and then two days later going to a gay bar for a rally, and then participating in a gigantic open-air gay sex party (that's really what Chicago's Gay Pride Parade is), that somehow averages out to being "moderate?"

 

Topinka Must Come Clean

 

Topinka and her pal Jim Edgar need to come clean as to why they really crucified Jack Ryan. Can they name even three Republicans who actually voted for Jack who feel they were mislead and who think he should have been pushed off the ballot? Ok, how about just two then Judy and Jim? How about just one?

 

Still waiting.

 

So what was Topinka and Edgar's obsession with Jack Ryan's private, married life and his divorce file? Was it really about "family values," or did it have more to do with Topinka wanting to get rid of a future rival in the Governor's race? Jack Ryan might well have run a good race, but still come up short against Obama and his rock-star status in a Blue State. But his stature would have grown, possibly making him the frontrunner for Governor next year - something Topinka simply couldn't tolerate. That's actually a theory former U.S. Senator Peter Fitzgerald floated recently in a Chicago media interview. And he's a guy who certainly knows something about how the Old Guard operates. The same Topinka crew also crucified Peter over fear of reform.

 

Or was Jack's crucifixion just all about Topinka's Combine pals not wanting to risk having another Peter Fitzgerald-like independent in that office who couldn't be trusted to play the "Illinois way" on O'Hare expansion and the selection of U.S. Attorneys? Those pesky independent prosecutors from out-of-state that Senator Fitzgerald had been picking, like Patrick Fitzgerald (no relation) who have been creating all sorts of heartburn for the Old Guard? Guys like Obama, their old colleague from Springfield would play ball they figured. So goodbye Peter Fitzgerald and Jack Ryan.

 

It may be a combination of motivations. But only Edgar and Topinka know the truth - getting it out of them is the challenge.

 

But we do know that Edgar and Topinka's stated reasons for savaging Jack Ryan were completely false. Whatever Jack Ryan's ex-wife alleged in their contested divorce wasn't "embarrassing" to the Party. It just wasn't. Doing the Polka with your old pal George Ryan in 2002 like Topinka did and getting caught on tape, now THAT is embarrassing to our Party! It's also priceless.

 

Any trumped-up charge of dishonesty against Jack Ryan also wasn't the reason. Topinka has told countless lies during her career. Unless she wants to defend a double-standard, that can't be the reason for throwing someone else off the ballot in our Party. Actually, too bad it can't be - the "frontrunner" would already be gone. So Topinka and Edgar have a lot of explaining to do.

 

The Gig's Up

 

Topinka is going to lose the Primary, but it's not going to be over the issue of abortion or her support of the gay agenda. Those issues are of course very important to many Republican Primary voters - and they should be.  And lazy media reporters love to rehash the same old "stories" about the supposed deep ideological divisions in the Republican Party. But that's all about superficial analysis, and completely misses Topinka's real Achilles' heel.

 

No, Topinka's not going to lose over abortion or gay rights. Topinka's going to lose because once voters start paying attention, they are going to find an extremely dishonest, hypocritical, mean-spirited woman, who's all about herself.  Many in the media can't accept that a "moderate" can also be nasty.  Liberals are hard-wired to believe that only conservatives are nasty. But the evidence speaks for itself, and it has nothing to do with ideology.

 

If this Party truly seeks unity - here's some. Let's just take the Jack Ryan experience because that was a big deal that everyone remembers. Even the most pro-gay liberal supporter can surely agree with the most conservative right-winger that Topinka's behavior demonstrates hypocrisy and nastiness on an almost surreal level. We're talking about behavior here that is way beyond anything we've ever seen in George Ryan - or anyone else for that matter.

 

It's simple. You can't preach about family values and crucify a married man for what he only allegedly did with his own wife - and then on the same weekend go to a gay bar and ride a float in a gay parade/party. Anyone - on any side of the ideological spectrum can understand that. 

 

Hypocrisy, dishonesty and nastiness aren't confined to convenient ideological labels. A desire for simple decency towards one's fellow man is something good liberals and good conservatives have in common - even in Illinois politics.

 

While we wait for some answers from Topinka and Edgar, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy Hannukah!