Giannoulias lost 18 pounds in campaign, can gain credibility with jobs mantra

Giannoulias lost 18 pounds in campaign, can gain credibility with jobs mantra
BY LAURA WASHINGTON
Copyright by The Chicago Sun-Times
February 8, 2010
http://www.suntimes.com/news/commentary/2034938,CST-EDT-laura08.article


He's a flawed nominee. However, U.S. Senate hopeful Alexi Giannoulias is the new G-Man and President Obama's new best friend.

After liberal Massachusetts elevated Republican Scott Brown to the Senate, David Axelrod and his fellow White House thumb suckers had to admit Brown sneaked up and caught them napping.

Not this time. National Democratic operatives are ordering NoDoz by the crate as they gear up for the fall elections.

For months, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has hammered away at U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk, the five-term congressman who sailed to the Republican nomination last week.

Kirk emerged from the primary virtually unscathed. So far, his effort has left few footprints in the snow for the Democrats to sully. The only major hit was a claim from wacky opponent Andy Martin, who questioned the North Shore congressman's sexual orientation and charged that he is too liberal for a Republican electorate (look for that hot potato to make a comeback).

Obama's basketball buddy must get into fighting shape. On Wednesday morning, during off-camera chitchat on the set at Fox Chicago, Giannoulias noted that he lost 18 pounds on the campaign trail. He may need to borrow a page from his new and notorious ticketmate Scott Lee Cohen and bulk up. Anabolic steroids, anyone?

While Giannoulias was celebrating his election night victory at the Fairmont Hotel, Republican operatives were peddling a hilarious Web commercial that touted the former banker and state treasurer's "shady ties" to Tony Rezko, Rod Blagojevich and a convicted mobster, Michael "Jaws" Giorango.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, the former national GOP chairman, hit town Wednesday to clasp Kirk to his bosom. On Wednesday morning, Barbour was gloating at a standing-room-only Republican unity breakfast at the Union League Club. "Yes we will, we will win back the Barack Obama Senate seat," Barbour declared. Kirk chimed in, "Welcome to the most important race of 2010 in the United States of America."

A post-election Rasmussen poll put Kirk ahead of Giannoulias, 46 percent to 40 percent, with 10 percent undecided and 4 percent preferring another candidate. So what's Giannoulias' game plan for the final hoops?

Ask Obama to put in a request to the other "Big O." A star turn on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" could showcase the G-Man's softer side. Oprah's ladies will swoon.

Job One for the "G" is jobs. Giannoulias' crusade for Illinois workers might help inoculate him from charges that he's an elitist, failing banker. His campaign has already made jobs and economic development a hallmark. An appeal to blue-collar workers is a stretch for him, but Giannoulias is a banger, at least compared with Kirk.

Despite a loudly proclaimed military pedigree, Kirk has always struck me as a weenie whiner. Witness his reaction to the Obama administration's decision to house Guantanamo detainees in a prison in Thomson. Kirk wrote Obama: "Our state and the Chicago metropolitan area will become ground zero for Jihadist terrorist plots, recruitment and radicalization."

Last year, Giannoulias jumped into the battle to save Hartmarx Corp., the Chicago-based suit manufacturer. In a teetering economy, he parlayed the muscle of the treasurer's office to keep the factory open and workers on the job.

If the G-Man hopes to hold Obama's Senate seat, he'll need to ram home his mentor's newfound mantra: It's jobs, jobs, jobs. And he'll need a monster assist from the national Dem operatives.

If the Illinois Democrats are left in charge, the party is doomed. They can't even handle a pawnbroker on steroids.