Another Reassuring Campaign Decision from Linda Pence

First came the whole thing about her being the lawyer for a defendant in the East Chicago sidewalks-for-votes corruption case.

Then came the fundraising at the law firm of former lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Then came the news that she defended a state senator who was close to corruption in the Build Indiana Fund and pled guilty on tax charges.

Now comes word that Linda Pence is hiring a Chicago media shop, Adelstein Liston, to do her ads for her.

Among Adelstein Liston’s notable clients listed on their website? Alexi Giannoulias, the Illinois state treasurer.

When Giannoulias ran for office, Barack Obama was one of the few elected officials in Illinois willing to back him in the Democratic primary. This was one of the only times in Obama’s career that he endorsed someone that was not backed by the Illinois establishment and the Chicago machine. Giannoulias, it seems, was too dirty for them. Broadway Bank, where he was an executive (and where Obama’s senate campaign kept its accounts), had apparently been loaning money to mafia figures.

David Fredosso, in The Case Against Barack Obama, writes of Giannoulias:

(Read more after the leap)

“The treasurer’s job is a financial job,” Obama explained. “He’s the candidate who has the financial experience.” Giannoulias was 29 years old at the time.

Obama kind of owed him. Giannoulias and his family had given more than $10,000 to his 2004 Senate campaign, which in turn kept its accounts at their bank. Giannoulias has pledged to raise $100,000 for Obama’s presidential campaign this year.

Broadway has loaned millions of dollars to Michael “Jaws” Giorango, a convicted bookmaker and prostitution ring promoter. When asked about loans the bank had made to Giorango in the 1990s, Giannoulias said he had not been a full-time employee of the bank at that time. Then the Chicago Tribune reported that in 2005, when Giannoulias was serving as vice president and senior loan officer at Broadway, the bank had made an $11.8 million loan to Giorango and that Giannoulias had even traveled to Miami to meet with Giorango and inspect a property the bank was financing for him. Of his original explanation, Giannoulias said, “It wasn’t an attempt to mislead.”

Giorango’s co-signer, Demitri Stavropoulos, had been convicted of explosives possession and running a bookmaking operation. In fact, Stravorpoulos’s wife once had to co-sign a loan on his behalf because he was in prison when the loan was made.

[...]

Mike Madigan, the Democratic Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives, refused to endorse Giannoulias after he had received the Democratic nomination, refused to take his phone calls, and even refused to put his photograph on the party’s campaign website.

“I want some answers. The allegations are there,” Madigan said at the time. “My history in politics, if you were alleged to be connected to the mob, you were done. But life seems to go on.”

I guess if they can get someone with those sorts of shady connections elected to statewide office in Illinois, Linda Pence should have no reason to think that they can’t get her elected to statewide office in Indiana with her (admittedly less) shady connections. A cakewalk by comparison, right?

Why would someone like Linda Pence, who is already having problems with her record and her associations, want to link her campaign to someone that has done work for a sleazy mafia-linked guy like Alexi Giannoulias? If she makes these sort of decisions about her campaign, what sort of decisions will she make as attorney general?