As expected following SEIU's recent ad-buy supporting her, Sara Feigenholtz's campaign has replaced her original spot with a comparative ad that whacks Mike Quigley for his support of Stroger's FY 2007 budget (via Capitol Fax):

The Quigley campaign has reacted forcefully.  They're holding a press conference with Forest Claypool this morning to respond to the "negative and misleading television ad." (See update below, in which Quigley accuses Feigenholtz of a "swift-boat attack.")  Meanwhile, the Tribune provides some context:

Let’s break that down.

Quigley did vote for Stroger’s first budget in the wee hours of the morning back in February 2007, supporting a spending plan that aimed at laying off more than 1,200 health-care workers, sheriff's deputies and other county workers. But commissioners who voted against Stroger’s budget blasted Quigley and others for what they said was sacrificing frontline workers to protect 400 administrators whose jobs they wanted to cut. Critics said some of those administrators were patronage hires that the county could afford to jettison.

As for backing Stroger, Quigley did support him in the November 2006 general election---as did many Democratic leaders throughout the city, including then-U.S. Sen. Barack Obama. But in the primary campaign, Quigley at first ran against Stroger’s father, John. Later, Claypool dropped out and helped run the campaign of Commissioner Forrest Claypool, who lost to the elder Stroger. 

The question is whether targeting Quigley's strength -- his reformer credentials -- with only four days left until the special primary is the right move by the Feigenholtz campaign.  It's hard to imagine too many minds being changed in that short a timeframe.  But we'll see.

In other news, we've updated our fundraising table with the latest 48-hour filings.  Of note: Pat O'Connor has been bringing in some sizeable contributions as of late, while Victor Forys tossed some $40,000 of his own money into the mix, bringing his total amount of self-funding to nearly $200,000:

And Tom Geoghegan received yet another endorsement from a national journalist, this time Salon's Joe Conason:

He has walked the progressive walk without becoming a cliché or a bore, as demonstrated repeatedly in his long series of engaging books, articles and columns, most notably "Which Side Are You On?" -- which may be the smartest (and most readable) book on the troubles of the American labor movement written by anybody during the past two decades. Witty, candid, unsentimental and yet stubbornly idealistic in a landscape of defeat and cynicism, Tom displayed in that memoir of life as a labor lawyer all the qualities that could make him an exceptional figure in Washington.

He possesses a certain kind of plain-spoken eloquence that will quickly make him an important spokesman on substantive issues. Nobody will do a better job of explaining why we need labor law reform or single-payer healthcare reform, because he has represented workers against union-busting companies and sued the big insurance companies too.

UPDATE: At his press conference this morning responding to Feigenholtz's ad, Quigley went so far as to call her "Sara Nixon" and accuse her of leveling a "swift boat attack":

QUIGLEY: This is Sara Nixon. The 11th hour, when its much harder to combat an unfair charge, that’s when you do this, because you know there's limited ability -- frankly, there's been limited coverage of this campaign and there's limited interest, just because it’s a special election. So that’s hard to overcome.

This is a swift boat attack. You attack somebody at their greatest strength and you do it at the last hour because you know its much tougher to retaliate and defend yourself.

While Quigley is right that Feigenholtz is going after his greatest strength, he hasn't directly refuted any of the assertions laid out in the ad, so the term "swift-boat" doesn't really apply here.  Remember, those that attacked John Kerry's war record not only targeted one of his perceived strengths, they also employed egregious falsehoods to get the job done.

More from the presser:

CLAYPOOL: You cannot wipe out 10 years of a man’s record with a negative ad at the 11th hour of a political campaign and that’s what Sara Feigenholtz is doing with this ad.

I’ve worked with Mike Quigley as a colleague on the county board for 7 years. No one -- and I mean no one -- has stood up to todd stroger more than him. For 10 years, he’s stood up to the Stroger machine politics of high tax increases, corruption, and mismanagement. [...]

QUIGLEY: We started selling reform and no new taxes 10 years ago. Now that’s what other people are trying to sell … I have faith in the voters and I have faith that 10 years of reform cannot be trashed by a 10-second spot on a commercial in the 11th hour. 

Full disclosure: The SEIU Illinois Council -- which is the sole sponsor of Progress Illinois -- has endorsed Sara Feigenholtz in the 5th Congressional District race.  You can read Progress Illinois' full assessment of the top tier candidates here.