From the Sun-Times:

Women still face roadblock to power

December 13, 2006
BY CAROL MARIN Sun-Times Columnist
It's been five weeks since the November election that put an end, at least for the moment, to Judy Baar Topinka's quarter-century-long political career. Though she was spotted at a political consultant's holiday party last month and has continued to write a column for her hometown Riverside newspaper, Topinka is staying out of the spotlight these days. She's still state treasurer, not to mention the lone Republican statewide office holder, until Jan. 8, but she is not, according to press secretary John Hoffman, doing any press interviews right now.

I had called her office Tuesday after running into Alexi Giannoulias, the 30-year-old Democrat who will succeed her. I asked Giannoulias how the transition was going. "Very well," he said.

Normally, the kind of transitions that make the news are the ugly ones. The kind where the newly elected office holder walks in on the first day to find all the databases erased, the file cabinets empty and the paper shredder over-flowing. That isn't Topinka's style. She is, and always has been, thoroughly decent, honorable and collaborative.

She met with Giannoulias a week after the election. "We sat down. She gave me advice," he said. "Everyone from her side has been wonderful."

This has not been a wonderful time for the 62-year-old Topinka. Think about it. She was drafted to be the chairman of the state GOP back when it was out of cash and gasping for air. She was pushed to run for governor by none other than President Bush's master manipulator, Karl Rove, when bigger names, like former Gov. Jim Edgar, bowed out.

In the March primary, of the four Republicans running, Topinka was the only one who risked everything in making the race. Millionaire businessman Ron Gidwitz had an investment firm to return to, dairy magnate Jim Oberweis had an ice cream empire, and state Sen. Bill Brady, a managing real estate broker, had more years left in his legislative term. Topinka, a public servant for 26 years, was the only one of them who had no independent wealth or other full-time career.

It was Topinka, a three-term treasurer who loved her job, who made the sacrifice play for her party. The odds were never in her favor but worsened immediately. Even though Rod Blagojevich had high unfavorable ratings and federal investigations everywhere, he also had millions to spend. By election day, he had defined Topinka with nearly 20,000 commercials casting her as a shrill harpie who cared nothing about kids or veterans or health care.

Now, don't get me wrong. Every candidate is going to try to define his or her opponent and use all the weaponry at hand to bring them to their knees. But the fact is that Topinka, though an immensely successful vote getter as state treasurer, was not someone most voters had seen up close or knew terribly well. Her own campaign missteps didn't help.

Today voters are left with the Blagojevich campaign refrain -- "What was she thinking?" -- still ringing in their ears. And they still don't really know her.

Christine Dudley, a longtime Republican political consultant and strategist, does. But even she has not had a conversation with Topinka since she lost the election. Topinka, she argues, has other things on her mind. "Most important," says Dudley, "she's worried about her ducks, her staff who have been with her in government, and have families to feed." Many will be looking for new jobs and Topinka is trying to help them.

There are those who believe, with the ascension of Nancy Pelosi as speaker of the U.S. House and Sen. Hillary Clinton as one of the frontrunners for the White House, that women have turned a new political corner on the road to power. I'm not so sure. And neither is Chris Dudley. Within her own Republican Party, she says, often support for women is "just lip service. We have to be full partners in this and we're not."

And just Tuesday, Thomas B. Edsall's New York Times column pointed to what he called "disturbing" Democratic numbers. "In the 42 top-tier 'Red to Blue' races selected by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for intensive financing and support, 25 of the candidates were male and 17 were female," wrote Edsall. "In those contests, male candidates batted .800: 20 victories to five defeats. The women faced higher barriers: three won and 14 lost, batting .176."

It's got to be something that Hillary Clinton is studying. As the Democrats embark on a presidential season that arguably could yield a woman or a person of color like Sen. Barack Obama as its presidential nominee, we are once again asking if the country is ready for either.

We have a long way to go on both fronts.

But it may well be that gender remains the larger liability.