Tribune columnist John Kass has endorsed radical Republican Jack Roeser’s conspiracy theory that Bill Brady ran as a spoiler candidate in the Republican gubernatorial primary last spring. Here’s what Kass wrote the other day.
…Topinka was helped when a Republican spoiler, state Sen. Bill Brady (R-Bloomington), got into the race with no chance of winning. His job was to split the anti-Judy Republican vote, ensuring Topinka would be the candidate.
But here’s what Tribune reporters Rick Pearson and John Chase wrote Sunday.
Brady has come under fire from some conservative elements who contended he played a spoiler role in the primary by taking away votes from conservative businessman James Oberweis and allowing the socially moderate Topinka to win the nomination.
“To think I would spend 120 hours a week away from my friends and family and business and invest tens of thousands of dollars on this just to be a stooge for somebody else borders on lunacy,” he said.
The problem with grand conspiracy theories is they almost never hold up to scrutiny. I can be convinced that Brady might have stayed in the race late in the game as an “Up yours” gesture to Oberweis for the way the milk magnate had treated him earlier.
But Brady most certainly did not get into the race, spend all that time and money, eat lousy food, give the same speech five times a day, shake thousands of hands, kiss countless crying stinky babies and be away from his own family purely to help Judy Baar Topinka beat Jim Oberweis.