Illinois is super liberal. Republicans have little chance of winning any state wide elected office there. Illinois = Obama.
What if Mike Ditka ran?
I would not go that far. Illinois has a very peculiar mix when it comes to the two parties. There is a very powerful country-club Republican establishment like Kirk, Topinka and the former Gov Thompson. However, many of the state democrats from blue collar and rural districts are socially conservative like Lipinski and Costello and former Sen Dixon.
However, its troubling that in the last 20 years the state went from being swing in Presidential races to a solid Blue.