Ain't gonna happen.
Illinois Ping
“Yeah, it would be nice, but the Republican Party in Illinois is so screwed up I am ashamed to even talk about it. They are just as corrupt as Blago!”
Hey, I was born in Chicago, and raised in the suburbs where I now still live (DuPage County, still mostly a bastion of conservatism). The whole Pub Party is NOT corrupt. The problem w/the Pub Party in IL is that it is split in half between the RINO’s and the Conservatives. Of late, when a conservative Pub runs in the primaries, the RINO’s make sure to get another alleged conservative Pub to run also, thus watering down the conservative vote and the RINO wins the primaries. As long as our Party in IL remains continually split between the Rockefeller Pub types and the social Conservatives, we will not win again.
Gov. Jim Edgar was the only Pub Gov who managed to bridge the two parts of the Party, and governed our State very well. It was because he was fiscally very responsible. Now our coffers are bankrupt, and the majority Dem rule is ruining our State. But the Pubs are so busy fighting each other now that the future looks bleak unless we can somehow come up with a consensus candidate that appeals to both wings of our Party. That ain’t easy.
AMEN !!
Did you do townhall at the Lincoln last night or was it snowed out?
Long but good read. This last paragraph says it all. Here in Ogle County we're pretty Republican but it's getting tighter. Lot's of immigrants (need I say illegals?) are tipping the balance more and more. Still, our state representatives as well as our Congressional House rep. remain Republican.
A personal aside: I've wondered in the past whether I'm a distant relation to lt. governor Pat Quinn. He's from Oak Park. I was born and raised until 11 years old in Oak Park and had relatives named Quinn (my mother's relative married into the family) living in Oak Park. But the Quinn family move to around Rockton about the same time, or before, that we moved to SE Wisconsin (1955). My genealogy work does not show a Patrick Quinn in that family line, but the Oak Park coincidence is intriguing. Who knows? I don't.
Anyway, if there is to be a special election for Obama's seat, the Illinois Republican Party should first work to insure the candidates are viable alternatives to Chicago/Cook County machine politics. Not just the one the Republicans may put forward, but the Democrat candidate as well. Then, the party needs to begin rebuilding itself instead of wallowing in defeatism as it has these past few years. THIS is the opportunity to begin that transformation. If we don't take advantage of it now then the party is indeed doomed.
And as another FReeper emailed me earlier, no more Oberweis, Keyes, Cox and the rest of the tools who couldn't win a city dog catcher's race.
Frankly, so long as the Chicago area remains a part of the state of Illinois, I’d reckon that Republicans in that state have about as much of a “future” as do their counterparts in New York, Massachusetts, California, and Vermont.
Which is to say, time to pack up and move to greener pastures!
- John