Personal PAC was quite pleased with the results of the March 21 primary, according to president and CEO Terry Cosgrove. However, the primaries are only half of the battle for the pro-choice group. Cosgrove chatted with Windy City Times to talk about what races to pay attention to in November.
Windy City Times: I know Rod Blagojevich's strategy is going to center around abortion. What about Republican candidates for governor and lieutenant governor Judy Baar Topinka and Joe Birkett?
Terry Cosgrove: I think [ people should be ] very scared. [ Birkett ] is a darling of the right wing. He is endorsed by all the right-wing organizations in this state, and being selected by her to be her running mate gives him a statewide platform to go on this anti-family planning, anti-choice and anti-gay rampage across the state. During the whole general election campaign, he has the platform to do that because she handed it to him. He can go out and get people stirred up with his bigotry and his anti-abortion and anti-birth control sentiments. If he wins the election, then he will have an elected, constitutional office for years at Judy Baar Topinka' s behalf. The reason why the lieutenant governor exists is if anything happens to the governor, that person becomes governor.
Very few people are aware that you don't vote for a lieutenant governor and governor separately. It's one vote. You can't vote for Judy Baar Topinka and not vote for Joe Birkett. They come as a package. When you go vote for Rod Blagojevich, you are voting for Pat Quinn. But both Blagojevich and Quinn are 100 percent pro-choice. Pat has also been supportive of other issues.
I think it's telling of how [ Topinka ] will cow-toe to the right wing of the state. The fact that she chose him as her running mate for lieutenant governor and gave him a platform for him to be out there promoting all of this stuff. It's basically taking Illinois back to the bad old days. I just don't see how she can claim to be pro-choice with an 84 percent anti-choice voting record and picking Joe Birkett as her running mate.
WCT: What other races are going to be key?
TC: We have more candidates to interview, but there will be several senate races that will be important and hotly contested. We know that we'll have pro-choice candidates, and one of them is the 52nd District in Champaign-Urbana. Judy Myers is a Republican candidate who is not anti-choice, and Michael Frerichs is the Democratic candidate. He is pro-choice.
The other will be the Rausenberger seat that he vacated in the Elgin area. That will be a very important senate race that we are looking more closely at now that the primaries are over.
The other will be the Petka seat. Senator Petka ran for the bench and won, so that's a vacancy. That's a seat that's based out of the Aurora and Plainfield area. That will be another critical one.
Another one will be up in Lake County with the Geo-Karis seat. She lost the primary. Michael Bond is the Democratic candidate there, and he's pro-choice.
There will be several other house races.
Alexi Giannoulias' seat for Treasurer will be very important because he's pro-choice.
WCT: What do you know about Christine Radogno [ the Republican nominee for Treasurer ] ?
TC: Her record is mixed. It's very mixed on choice stuff. We need to look more closely at that.
There's, of course, the governor's race and the Attorney General. Lisa Madigan is pro-choice and her opponent is not.
Then, there is the Secretary of State's race with Senator Rutherford. Rutherford is not pro-choice.
Pretty much our races for Cook County Board Commissioners are settled in the primary. President Stroger has been good on our issues.
WCT: Were there any races that you were disappointed or surprised by?
TC: We really only launched two races out of everything that we did. We had a very good night. In the race for the Republican nomination in the 95th District, our candidate was Pamela Mitroff, and she lost. Her opponent was a sitting mayor of one of the biggest towns in the district and every single newspaper endorsed him, so that was an uphill battle. So, I wasn' t surprised, but I was a little disappointed that we lost.
The other one was Rita Mullins, who lost in the primary for the senate in the 27th, which is up in the Northwest suburbs like Palatine. Rita lost. Again, we were disappointed, but not totally surprised. That senate race will likely be very important to us because Peter Gutzmer is the Democratic, pro-choice candidate. He' s a firefighter with the Elk Grove Fire Department. Matt Murphy, the Republican, is a right-winger. So, we'll be looking closely at that one.
WCT: What race will be the biggest challenge for Personal PAC? Will it be the governor's race?
TC: We'll have to see how it plays out. It's certainly a top priority for us.
