Burris blasts Hynes' ad campaign

U.S. Sen. Roland Burris, the first black man ever elected statewide, on Wednesday called a recent campaign ad invoking deceased Chicago Mayor Harold Washington "an abomination."

Comptroller Dan Hynes' campaign for governor has been running a decades-old interview featuring Washington, the city's only elected black mayor, calling his hiring of Pat Quinn to run his revenue department his "greatest mistake in government."

Quinn, now governor, has lashed out at Hynes, suggesting the ad is part of a mean-spirited, negative campaign and noting Hynes' father was part of a Democratic establishment that fought Washington during the 1980s.

In an interview with the Daily Herald, Burris joined in Quinn's criticism but also noted the heat of the campaign.

"I thought it was an abomination that Dan Hynes would do that," Burris said. "But be that as it may, it's called politics and all is fair in love and war. But it hit the community. Especially the African American community has really let him know that it was not in good taste."

In a conference call with reporters, Hynes' campaign aides defended the ad and said their internal polling shows no signs of a backlash among black voters. Instead, they say Hynes is gaining within that key Democratic voting bloc, which can and has tipped election in the past.

Political observers disputed Quinn's claims that the ad is racist, and said Washington's pointed criticism of Quinn is simply too "juicy" to resist in a race for governor, especially in Illinois.

"The only thing racial here is that Washington happens to be African American," said Paul Green, director of Roosevelt University's School of Policy Studies. He suggested Quinn would do the same if it were Hynes being called out by the mayor.

"If you're running for governor for the state of Illinois, in the greatest financial doo-doo since the Great Depression, and your opponent is called incompetent by the former mayor of Chicago, then that is pretty juicy," Green said.

But Quinn continued to criticize Hynes' tactics in a new ad that touts his history of fighting for the common man. In it, Quinn says Hynes wants to drag the state back to the "politics of the past."

A second Quinn ad focuses on his attendance at funerals of Illinois soldiers, something that, until now, Quinn had done for years without political fanfare or self-promotion. His campaign defended the decision to politicize the funerals in the final days of the campaign.

"The governor thought long and hard about this issue," said campaign spokeswoman Elizabeth Austin, who said the soldiers' families contacted the campaign in response to Hynes' ads.

"These families asked us if they could stand up for the governor, who has done so much for Illinois' military families for so many years," she said.

Also on Wednesday, Gov. Quinn announced funding for Loop road improvements and then traveled to DeKalb for a news conference announcing $8 million in funding for building renovations, including work on Cole Hall where the 2008 student shootings occurred.

It marked the second straight day that the incumbent governor had made major announcements that also resonated in his campaign. On Tuesday, he announced Ford Motor Co. would add more than 1,000 jobs to its Chicago assembly plant, a move he'd touted the night before during a debate.