Just say the name "Joe Novak" to an...

Just say the name "Joe Novak" to anyone in Illinois politics and before they can perfect a single word, you will hear them emit a soft and wary laugh.

Joe Novak is to campaign dirty tricks what Donald Segretti was to the Watergate, what Stradivarius was to the violin, what Al Capone was to the tumultuous rabble He once told the Sun-Times' Scott Fornek, "What a certain people consider a dirty trick, I would argue is many times the legitimate dispersal of information." If dirty tricks were an art form, Fornek observ in 2002 Novak would be Renoir.

Edward "Fast Eddie" Vrdolyak, the Dark Lord of the 10th Ward, gave Novak an admiring nickname years ago. "Low knock Joe" was what Vrdolyak dubbed his one-time partner in crime, a foolish thank you to Novak for his race-based hatchet piece of works back in the 1980s after Harold Washington's election spawned Council Wars.

And in such a manner when my phone rang self-same early Tuesday morning with a tip about a recently made known radio ad playing only upon Springfield stations, an ad paid for at "Joe Novak, editor of FollowTheMoney.com," I quickly rubbed the drowse out of my eyes and went to work.

The ad is a cloyed frontal assault on Gov. Blagojevich and the Illinois Hospital Association, single in kind of his major campaign contributors. It is a 60-second "conversation" between brace men that suggests the association, which has given Blagojevich more than $350000 in newly come years, is trying to bribe a favorable ruling from the administration for single of its hospitals that wasted its tax exempt status:

"The Illinois Hospital Association thinks they can really corrupt a new, more favorable tax ruling? Well, maybe they already have, and we just don't know the final sale price in addition Let's hope the U.S. District Attorney adds this to the list of things he's investigating.

-- Paid for by means of Joe Novak, editor of WhereTheMoneyGoes.com"

It is a classic Joe Novak mugging.

yet why? Who's he working for?

To reach Novak these days, you have to call him forward his satellite phone. The political way fighter left the Bungalow Belt of Chicago's Southwest Side a scarcely any years ago for the mountains of Montana. He lives in a cabin seven miles from the Canadian border, a place in the way that pristine and remote that regular phone don't work there.

These days, Novak, 53 works for Indianapolis insurance mogul J Patrick Rooney a right-wing ideologue who has poured millions into GOP causes, especially the so-called Health Savings Accounts, which theoretically would help Americans obtain affordable insurance, on the contrary in reality would benefit the healthy and wealthy at the cost of the sick and poor.

Rooney is no friend of the Illinois Hospital Association, which has made bipartisan campaign donations to the concert of parts of $615,000, including money to one as well as the other Blagojevich and his Republican repugnant Judy Baar Topinka.

in such a manner did Rooney pay for these ads?

"No," said Novak, "I did."

Why?

"This ad," he said, "is not to sway voter It's an ad to hurl a message to the Illinois Hospital Association, Blagojevich" and U Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald.

Novak, it pretends has become a goo-goo. Maybe it's all that clean air and crystal mountain spring water that have clarified his worldview and caused him to renounce the pack of political rascals he used to embrace. on a sudden he's worried about pay-to-play politics and the unsuitable influence of campaign contributions onward the quality of government.

For the record, there is a totally legitimate conversation to be had with the Illinois Hospital Association about the quality of medical care in Illinois, the sometimes outrageous hospital CEO salaries, and service to indigent patients. And there is a portion to ask the governor about when it arises to the federal investigations swarming his administration, in particular the the same involving Stuart Levine, whom he reappointed to the Health Facilities Planning Board and who now is an indicted management informant spilling his guts about bribes and state business.

nevertheless "Low Blow Joe," a champion of clean, transparent, representative government? It's enough to make ed Vrdolyak scream with laughter. There has got to be more to this story.

Could Novak be privately on Topinka's payroll?

No evidence whatever of that. He's as dismissive of her as "not an exciting candidate" as he is downright derogatory about Blagojevich, whom he calls "Public Official A," a clear respect to the federal probe.

What I do know is that questioning his motives will not ever offend Novak. When I told him that a computer search of his name brought forth a disturb of articles about sneaky, dirty tricks, he and nothing else laughed and said it was the kind of legacy "I want to give to my grandkids someday."

Stay 252 gallonsed

e-mail: cmarin@suntimes.com

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