Last night, candidates met for the first debate in Illinois’ fall campaign for governor.

As expected, the issue of ethics got top billing.

Republican State Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka touted her office’s clean record and criticized incumbent Rod Blagojevich over federal investigations into his administration.

“We don’t have the U.S. attorney crawling all over us. We don’t have the attorney general or the auditor general crawling all over us. We are not the most investigated administration in this state,” Topinka says.

As he has in the past, Blagojevich linked Topinka to former Republican Illinois Governor George Ryan - who’s been convicted of corruption and racketeering.

“Treasurer Topinka was absent when Governor Ryan was running our state into the ground and he had the most corrupt administration in our history,” Blagojevich says. “It’s obvious what happened to Governor Ryan. Treasurer Topinka never lifted a finger, didn’t say a word.”

The debate took place at Millikin University in Decatur.

Green Party candidate Rich Whitney was not invited to participate in the debate.