It took only a few hours for Mark Kirk to emerge from whatever wormhole he’s been in since he shirked his end-of-April timeline on deciding what to run for. Politico is reporting:
Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) is telling supporters that he will be running for President Obama’s old Senate seat in Illinois, according to several GOP sources familiar with his conversations. Since news broke that Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan (D) wasn’t running for the Senate, Kirk has been calling leading donors and GOP operatives to inform them he plans to run for the Senate.
As we’d reported several months ago, rumor was that Kirk was likely to go for a promotion to Senator or Governor, but that he’d meekly go wherever AG Lisa Madigan didn’t go. With Madigan announcing earlier today that she wouldn’t be running for either one, Kirk got his pick… and he chose the one his big stash of campaign cash is transferable to.
RaceTracker: IL-Sen
Unless Burris wins the primary on some sort of bizarre computer glitch, I can’t see Kirk beating any of the major Dem candidates (usual caveats apply); I’m sure there’ll be some polls in the next year or so that will show he might and will generate panic and/or gloating from different ends of the spectrum, but at the end of the day, he loses.
I’d have been a lot more worried about him running for Governor. State political parties are generally more acclimated to local conditions, and Illinois has been a lot friendlier to statewide Republicans for state office than those for statewide federal office in the last few decades.
Kirk was safe in his House seat, despite its strong Dem lean. In 2008 we threw everything we had at him and he still won by a large margin. But he has no chance of winning statewide against any Dem that isn’t Burris. Maybe he thinks he’s running against Burris.
Kirk wont win. He couldn’t carry his part of Cook county in 2008 and he has been having trouble holding down his base. Alexi Giannoulias will probably run. What Kirk’s issue will be is that he is going to have a huge deficit in Cook county against him of about 500,000 votes at least which will makes it extremely difficult for him to get a majority or plurality of votes in a statewide election. In 1998, Carol Mosley-Braun only won 5 counties in Illinois and still managed to get almost 48% of the vote. In the recent PPP poll, Giannoulias had a 12% lead over Kirk among moderates and 30% of democrats were undecided. I think that Kirk will get crush by Giannoulias and we will also get Kirk’s house seat. In addition, I am very sure that Obama will be involved in this election if the polls showed it get close.
What will be the campaign narrative on each side?
Kirk’s vote on cap and trade is not flying well with his own party. He is going to get vilified at every tea party and basted on the talkers. Heck, imagine the damage that will be done to him in the north with Mankow screaming bloody murder in the Chicago market. He has good ratings and one has to figure his audience is a good chunk of the GOP primary in the northern tier of the state.
Supposedly Kirk’s strategists view the vote as crucial to his appeal in the northern part of the state, enabling him to pull a better margin in the Chicago burbs. The problem from his perspective is he underestimates the blowback among the GOP base down south and in the manufacturing belt around Rockford and the like.
The GOP base is in a mood much like the one anti-war progressive Democrats were in the 2004 and 2006 cycles: super-pissed off and not in the mood for RINOs or half-measures. Breaking with a GOP article of faith when they are in pitchfork mode is not going to consolidate them at all. His right flank is wide open and politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum.
OK, Andy McKenna is from the wrong wing of the party to cause him much trouble, but another entrant more enticing to Rightworld is likely to emerge. The wildcard, of course, is Jack Ryan, who likely would have dusted Obama if he had been content simply having a super-hot wife and not felt a need to publicly validate the obvious.
He has a big hurdle to overcome but Ryan is very talented. And Kirk is tailor-made to give the wingers an excuse to resurrect Ryan.
If not Ryan, someone is going to exploit this in the GOP primary. There are too many mining jobs in So Ill, too many energy-intensive manufacturing jobs and AEP-related jobs all over the state. Cornyn is running short on leverage. I don’t see him as able to muscle out challengers and clear the primary field. Normal rules are not going to apply. The popularity of Palin and the surging ratings for right-wing talk indicate the rank and file is off on their own populist trajectory beyond the limited ability of CCs and business lobbies to control. Cornyn can play whack-a-mole leaning out everyone in their farm system and someone will pop up from nowhere and be good for over 40 percent.
There is a distinct gulf between the GOP rank-and-file and its establishment. Kirk is perfectly designed for the GOP base to take its frustrations with its own establishment leadership. And the mistake the GOP establishment is making is thinking they can control the release of steam. Their base is too POd to vote tactically or take half a loaf. And they are directing more of their anger at Obama towards their own establishment for what they perceive as handling Obama with kid gloves. The base wants to rumble and are mad at their wimpy leadership for not throwing haymakers.
Rubio versus Crist in Florida and a player to be named versus Kirk in Ill… gonna be brutal primaries exposing the fissures in their coalition.
I don’t think he has a chance in hell at the Senate.
The next year would have to go really badly politically and economically for Illinois to be reaching for republicans for Senate. Kirk is a fool. Thanks for the House seat though.
So who runs against Seals in the primary?
What a shocker. As usual, mostly everyone on here downplays the Republicans chance at winning and overplays the Democrats.
I hope you all are right, but I fear you may not be.
Anyone think that Mosley-Braun could beat Kirk.
Lock photon torpedoes and phasers on the Enterprise and fire! (Stroking my star trek nerd tendencies) Anyway let’s not get complacent here. Mark Kirk could score an upset especially if Burris (aka our Bill Sali but without the temper) gets through a very crowded primary. The DSCC and the Illinois Democratic Party should do some primary field clearing asap. We cannot afford to give the Republicans a senate seat and a major psychological victory here.
Patterson to appoint a Lt. Gov
Isn’t Kirk’s $500k for a state as big as Illinois a little disappointing?
Kirk could have moved his federal money to a state account. Illinois is quite permissive this way.
Kirk has cared very little about state government. He didn’t like the idea of pretending to care.
Running for Senate Kirk will benefit from the image he and the media have created that he’s some sort of foreign policy genius. If by “genius” you mean consistently wrong, Mark Kirk is brilliant.
I think Giannoulias may have carried Kirk’s district in 2006. If Giannoulias runs he will definatly win the primary since Shakowski and Madigan are gone. If Giannoulias runs he is definatly favored since he won a statewide election before and Kirk has no statewide experience. I also just cant see how Kirk could win with heavily democratic Cook county which represents around 40% of the vote where Republicans struggle to get even 30% of the vote there.
Check out my archives
http://www.ellenofthetenth.blo…
Kirk loses. Cook County will never allow a Republican to win Illinois. Plus the Democratic pols such as Pat Quinn, Jesse White, Dick Durbin, Rahm Emanuel, Mike Madigan and Lisa Madigan will come front and center in support of whoever is nominated for the Democrats(which my gut says will be Giannoulias). No need to worry here.
The amazing thing is we’re probably going to net house seats for a third election in a row.
What’s the GOP bench in IL-10 like. I know we have Bond and Garrett, but who do the goopers have?
As someone pointed out, Kirk has raised less money than Paul Hodes did in NH. What were the last $ tallies on our side? I know Alexi raised a lot, and Roland only raised $845, but I don’t remember much else.
BTW, I noticed that this Senate seat has not seen an incumbent re-elected since 1986. Interesting cast of officeholders, though. 😉
Dan Seals is running again in IL-10.
We should have some advantage picking up this House seat. And a Democrat here would be more useful here than one from rural Alabama or rural Idaho.