Alexi in the Hot Seat

The slimy Dem candidate for the Illinois Senate is getting attention from the national press on his stonewalling. Illinois GOP:

Illinois Senate Candidate Dodges Questions on Family Bank Woes as National Attention Grows

After 29 days of dodging reporters’ questions about his role in the near-collapse of Broadway Bank, national speculation on Giannoulias’ candidacy widens

Bloomberg: “Obama Friend’s Bid for Senate Seat Threatened by Bank’s Losses”

The fate of the $1.2 billion-asset Broadway Bank, whose wealth helped finance Giannoulias’s successful 2006 state treasurer bid, is playing a growing role in a contest for a seat the Democrats have unexpectedly found themselves defending and that may help determine whether Obama’s party can keep its Senate majority…

“The last thing that Alexi Giannoulias needs right now is another round of bad news stories and stories raising questions about the family’s business,” said Stu Rothenberg, editor of the non-partisan Rothenberg Political Report. “The one thing you don’t want to spend in a campaign is a lot of time defending yourself.”

…Rothenberg said he sees a slight advantage for Kirk because of the bank controversy and this summer’s corruption trial of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat.

“The timing seems right for Kirk,” he said.

Chicago Tribune: “Time for that talk”

Voters want to know about his role in his family's struggling Broadway Bank, and Giannoulias promised he'd provide those details after the Feb. 2 primary election. "If I'm fortunate enough to make it out of the primary, we can have that conversation," he said. His plan now seems to be to stonewall until November…

…Giannoulias says voters "saw through" those "guilt-by-association attacks." More likely they gave him a pass. In 2006, Broadway was the most profitable bank in Illinois, having doubled its assets in four years, and the fifth most profitable community bank in the nation. At 29, candidate Giannoulias looked like a wunderkind.

The picture that comes to mind now is more "Look Ma, no hands!" In the four years Giannoulias worked for the bank, it came to rely heavily on relatively risky construction and development loans funded by volatile brokered deposits. It was an aggressive, high-growth strategy, and it was enormously successful — until the real estate market tanked, sending the banking industry into a tailspin.

New York Times: “As Lender, Senate Candidate Impacted Bank Woes”

Alexi Giannoulias would be nothing in Illinois politics if not for Broadway Bank. Now the near-failure of that family-owned bank is threatening to make him a political non-entity again.

Broadway Bank is the source of the wealth that has made him a viable candidate. It also provides his main claim to professional expertise, the ability to write loans and tally a balance sheet. But now the precipitous implosion of the bank’s finances — punctuated last week by an agreement with regulators that the bank must raise more capital or else — is a potentially serious blow to Mr. Giannoulias’s viability in the race for the United States Senate seat once held by President Obama.

…Mr. Giannoulias told reporters that a time would come when he could answer questions about what happened at his family’s bank. Here is hoping there is plenty of time, because questions keep mounting faster than the troubles at Broadway Bank.