 "Photo: James McDonnough ~ Daily Egyptian")
Bloomington Sen. Bill Brady visited Marion and three other Illinois cities Monday to formally start his second gubernatorial campaign more than a year before voters head to the polls.
Brady is the first candidate to formally campaign for governor this year. The election is scheduled for Nov. 2, 2010.
Arriving by plane from a speech in Springfield, Brady spoke to a group of nearly 60 people in the Williamson County Airport’s main terminal before jetting off to Bloomington where he concluded a day of campaigning that began in Chicago.
Brady was defeated by then-Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in 2006. Brady said this campaign would be different from his unsuccessful bid in 2006 because his party has matured while Democrats have shown they cannot lead.
Richard Stubblefield, chairman of the Jefferson County Republican Party, said Brady’s early start in the race would build Republican support for his campaign. He said early support for one candidate could prevent other Republican contenders from attacking a member of their own party before the 2010 primary election.
“There will be other candidates,” Stubblefield said. “But we can’t waste our resources on fighting each other.”
If elected governor, Brady said he would call on the presidents of public universities to meet with members of the business community.
“We have long failed to partner the business community with the educational community in a way that could provide an incubator for entrepreneurship, economic growth and business development,” he said.
Brady said students should vote for him because he is from central Illinois and not a part of the Chicago political machine.
“The next governor is going to have to make tough decisions, but Bill Brady is the man to make them,” said Shawn Banks, chairman of the Williamson County Republicans.
Brady said he opposes an income tax increase to close the state’s $9 billion budget deficit. The way to balance the budget is to prioritize the government’s spending and give business owners tax breaks so they can create jobs, he said.
Elected to the first of four terms as a state representative in 1992, Brady became a senator in 2002 after his predecessor, Sen. John Maitland, suffered a paralyzing stroke and resigned in 2001.
Though he told the Chicago Sun-Times he has no reason not to run for re-election, Gov. Pat Quinn has yet to formally announce his candidacy. Attorney General Lisa Madigan said she is considering running for governor during an Oct. 22 speech in the Lesar Law Building. Comptroller Dan Hynes said in May he was considering running for governor as well.
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