Posted on 08/05/2015 12:20:14 PM PDT by jfd1776
Reflections – and a bit of a primer – on Illinois’ next U.S. Senate race…
Parties sometimes get a bum rap.
Oh, not always; there’s a lot that political parties do that makes them deserve everything said about them. The Democratic Party, for example, is now so uniformly socialist that, when asked on-camera to list any differences between a modern Democrat and a socialist, DNC Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D, FL) was unable to identify any.
The Republican Party isn’t that easy to categorize. The GOP is the only major party to the right of the Democrats, so it basically gets not only conservatives, but also everyone who can’t bear to lower themselves to admit to being socialists. So the GOP has a “big tent” – not so much because the GOP leadership has planned it that way, but because of how unacceptable the modern Democratic Party is to all non-socialists.
This odd transformation over recent generations – the transformations of the Democrats into a purely socialist party and of the Republicans into a catch-all for everyone else – has warped our politics in ways that vary from state to state. While it’s relatively easy for Democrats to share a platform nationwide, the Republicans have a much harder time of it. Texas Republicans are mostly conservative; Connecticut Republicans are mostly liberal. Illinois Republicans are an even mix, ranging from solid Reaganites to people to the left of what used to be known as the Weicker/Rockefeller wing.
This makes it harder to be a party official in the Republican Party than to be one in the Democratic Party, so we should give GOP leaders a bit of a break sometimes when they appear to be confused or conflicted. They do have a good deal more complexity to weigh in the balance in their party than Democrat leaders do in theirs.
A Party’s Power
That being said, however… there are some things that only a party is empowered to do. While the adherence to a consistent platform may be more of a challenge in a big tent like this one, the Republican party does still have considerable control, and therefore influence, due to its apparatus.
The campaign finance rules used to be more skewed in favor of the parties, but even today, parties have considerable sway over political funds. Parties advertise in all media; they acquire and place volunteers and interns. Parties organize issue updates and provide research services; they do their own polling on races, on issues, and on people. Parties have regular organizations of volunteers to populate a campaign or a movement. And parties put people together; they arrange meetings and luncheons and conferences that make the difference plain between which primary candidates have the party’s blessing and which ones don’t. Parties can grant legitimacy.
And when a party chair says “We wish our good friend Candidate X the best of luck in his important reelection next year,” that sends a clear message to potential donors, even if there’s no formal endorsement… a very different message than one sent by the statement “Next year will be a very challenging year; we look forward to the primary/caucus voters making a thoughtful decision as they pick our nominee!”
Which approach to take – when to get responsibly involved in a primary and when to stay responsibly out – is one of the greatest challenges for any party official. A difficult decision, but often utterly critical to the end result in the General Election in November.
Because, after all, while the individual candidate’s job is to be a good public servant if he wins, and the ideologue’s job is to advance his ideals, a party’s job is to win elections. These may all be related goals, but they are nevertheless distinct.
Tops and Bottoms
One of the many jobs of a political party is to consider the electorate and factor it into the year’s plans. For example, we have a lower turnout in a non-presidential year (known as a midterm election) than in a presidential election. Thus it is that the GOP did spectacularly in 2010 and 2014, but relatively poorly in 2012, even though the economic, social, and foreign policy indicators have been equally poor (and therefore, equally valid campaign issues) throughout the Obama presidency. (No, this is not to say that the different makeup of the electorate is the only reason for the presidential loss, just that it is among the reasons).
The party must therefore respond to these conditions and affect the nomination process, to the extent that it can, in a direction that helps the party select the most winnable nominee(s) for the general election in November.
One could argue that there are two kinds of voters – those who care about most or all of the races, and those who care only about the most highly publicized ones. So it is that one of the key jobs of a party is to attract its base to the polls, and to attract other voters to its side of the aisle, largely by focusing on what’s known as “the top of the ticket.”
The goal of any party is for its nominee for the top of the ticket to have “coattails” – meaning that the popularity and excitement associated with the party’s most important race in the cycle generates infectious enthusiasm, bringing in voters to vote for the candidate’s colleagues on the ballot in “less important” races too. You don’t just show up to vote for the president and leave; you hopefully vote for the state rep and state senator and county commissioner of the president’s party too, while you’re at it. Even if you don’t know them, because those races may not have registered on your personal radar screen, you don’t want to waste your trip to the polls; while you’re there, you vote for them too.
And if the top of the ticket hadn’t drawn you there, your critical votes for those other down-ballot races wouldn’t have been there to be cast either.
Different states schedule things differently; some states, like Louisiana and Virginia, hold their state constitutional officers’ elections (governor, attorney general, secretary of state, etc.) in the November of an odd year, just before the presidential primaries; others, like Illinois and Wisconsin, hold theirs in the even midterm year, halfway between presidential elections.
As a result, for such states without constitutional offices on the ballot in a presidential year, there is a president at the top of the ticket, and then perhaps a senate race if they’re lucky; otherwise the next race to generate any enthusiasm is the Congressional one.
In Illinois in 2016, every voter’s ballot will have just such precipitous drops as these: the president first, then the senate second, and then the congressman third. In Illinois, most Congressional races are in safe districts thanks to gerrymandering, with relatively few being truly contested.
But here’s the key problem: Illinois is considered – rightly or wrongly – to be a deep blue state in a presidential race. No Republican presidential candidate has carried Illinois in a generation. As much as activists (including this author) may insist that Illinois would be in play for the right candidate, the fact is that most Illinois voters don’t believe it’s possible that their vote will really matter in the presidential race.
So when it comes to the question of a “top of the ticket” that draws in voters, the senate race is the whole ball of wax in Illinois. Unless the GOP nominates a really exciting candidate for president, one whom people will vote for just for the joy of it, even if they don’t think he’ll win their states, the Illinois nominee for the U.S. Senate is the real key to bringing people to the polls for all those other races too.
If anyone wants voters to show up and support county commissioners, state reps, state senators, and all the other races on the November 2016 ballot in Illinois, he’d better hope that the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Mark Kirk is perceived as exciting enough and winnable enough to draw voters to the polls.
Why Not the Incumbent?
Normally, the easy choice for a party – if it has an incumbent in the office – is to support that incumbent, and discourage challengers. This makes sense, as the incumbent usually has an immense advantage in name recognition, fundraising, contacts, organization, and respect.
But sometimes there are reasons why an incumbent is weak. History is replete with examples of incumbents recognizing that the odds are against their reelection, and stepping back to avoid the embarrassment and failure of losing the seat in November. Lyndon Johnson recognized it only after the primaries had begun in 1968; Jimmy Carter never realized it and went down to a well-deserved defeat in 1980.
This has happened repeatedly in Illinois’ U.S. Senate races, in fact. Incumbent Senator Peter Fitzgerald knew he’d have difficulty holding his seat in 2004, so he stepped aside (not anticipating how the party would blow it that summer and deliver it to future president Barack Obama). Incumbents Chuck Percy in 1984 and Carol Moseley-Braun in 1998 were both warned by others in their party to step aside for a stronger candidate; both refused, and went down to defeat in the fall.
2016 will be another such year. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, Illinois’ U.S. Senate incumbent is the Republican Party’s weakest candidate for 2016, not its strongest. Mark Kirk’s negatives – always high, but this year off the charts – virtually ensure loss of the seat if he wins re-nomination, as he seems determined to attempt, against all sane counsel.
The Case Against Mark Kirk
Mark Kirk is an experienced legislator and veteran. Having served in intelligence and also as a staffer on the Hill to his mentor, former Congressman John Porter, Senator Kirk has exactly the resume that one one would expect to be a winner. His contribution to debate on foreign policy and military matters, in both the Senate and House, have often been thoughtful and positive.
But he has negatives, and they are insurmountable.
Issues:
Throughout his fourteen years in the legislature, Senator Kirk has always allied himself with the moderate/liberal caucus of the Republican Party. For a Chicago north shore representative, this much isn’t shocking. Illinois’ GOP has a very big tent indeed.
But unlike most legislators, Mark Kirk has gone out of his way to drive a wedge between himself and the conservative ranks. From casual comments to scripted speeches, he has made his disdain for those who hold the party platform in high regard painfully clear. His legislative voting record has earned him a miserable 57.54% ACU rating, indicating that he votes against platform conservatism almost as often as he votes for it, putting him among the worst Senators in the GOP caucus.
Again and again, he has voted wrong, not just on minor issues, but on huge ones of importance to the base, from his support for a Global Warming inspired Carbon Tax scheme at the beginning of his Senate career, to his position as the sole Republican vote against defunding of Planned Parenthood when the baby organ selling scandal broke.
Kirk has spent his career causing conservatives who “always come home to the party nominee” in November to question whether this enemy of the party and the people should perhaps be an exception to that rule. He makes good Republicans wonder whether his undependability properly puts him in the same bucket as such former senators as Arlen Specter and Jim Jeffords, people so dangerous to the cause that we’d actually be better off with a Democrat holding the seat.
Party Loyalty:
For many, the party loyalty argument goes an incredibly long way, and perhaps rightfully so. But Mark Kirk himself voided that argument in 2014, when he refused to support the GOP nominee against his seatmate, Democrat Whip Dick Durbin.
In a move that amazed political onlookers of all stripes, Mark Kirk refused to support Illinois State Senator Jim Oberweis in his bid to unseat Dick Durbin for the other Illinois seat in the U.S. Senate.
Instead, Kirk amazingly endorsed Durbin for reelection. It hardly needs mention that it is utterly inconceivable that the uber-partisan Durbin would return such a favor. Kirk’s apostasy on this matter forever lost him the support of all those who had only been voting for him out of party loyalty all along; not just conservatives but Republicans of all stripes shook the dust of the Kirk campaign off their sandals over a year ago, and will never consider supporting him in any way again. And rightly so.
Electoral Strength:
Mark Kirk won his Senate seat in 2010 with a minority of the vote. He defeated Democrat Alexi Giannoulias with a margin of only 48% to the Democrat’s 46%... third party candidate made up the remaining six points.
Monday morning quarterbacking is of course always imprecise and sometimes unfair, but there are certain lessons from this example. Kirk was then an ethically-unblemished five-term Congressman and veteran; Giannoulias was a Chicago pol known even to the liberal mainstream media as “the mob’s banker.” Unusual for the mainstream media in modern America, the press actually sided with Kirk in 2010, and he still couldn’t make it to fifty percent against a Chicago Democrat tarred with a two-bit role on the wrong side of the banking crisis!
In addition, remember what a year 2010 was. We’re talking about the same day that Republicans captured the governorships of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Republicans took eleven governorships away from the Democrats across the country that day, but Mark Kirk couldn’t even get to fifty percent with the media’s help.
The party leadership – which had successfully talked other big name Republicans out of the primary in 2010 on the argument that Kirk was the strongest possible choice – has to admit that they were wrong. Their argument was based on the theory that with Mark Kirk on top of the ticket, he’d have coattails, helping win the governorship and hopefully one house in Springfield. That certainly happened elsewhere in the country that day… but not in Illinois.
Mark Kirk is a loner in politics. He is a man without coattails… in a year and a state in which coattails are a critical prerequisite. The Republican Party of Illinois cannot afford people at the top of the ticket who don’t work as a team with the rest of the ticket and bring downballot victories along in the wake of their victories.
The Stroke:
This is a difficult issue to discuss, because an analyst must be fair… but it must be said: Mark Kirk is not healthy enough to run a vigorous campaign. He was elected at the prime of health, able to live the challenging life of a statewide candidate, traveling, walking, and giving speeches from dawn until late at night. This is no Rhode Island or Vermont; Illinois is a big state with a lot of ground to cover; a candidate must be healthy to run a campaign.
But Mark Kirk’s stroke took him out of the senate for a full year, and while his recuperation has been worthy of compliment, it is far from complete. His speech isn’t fully back, his energy will obviously never return, and he’s lost even the limited filter that he previously managed over his sometimes outlandish commentary.
His opponent will be able to mop the floor with him in debate, but even besides that, the normal day today rigor of a campaign is simply beyond him. A one-term senator cannot run a rose garden campaign, and that, frankly, is all that he is now capable of.
Nobody is as conscious of his health challenges as Kirk himself, as he struggles to talk and walk every hour of every day. His insistence on running this Quixotic campaign is therefore inexplicable, unless he thinks himself to be the 21st century version of New York’s Jacob Javits… but there is no similarity. Illinois is bluer than New York was in those days, and even wheelchair-bound, Javits was a far stronger campaigner than Kirk has a prayer of being in 2016. And Javits lost his race when he was still in better health than the much younger Mark Kirk is today.
Mark Kirk deserves to retire on disability. Whatever a voter may think of his voting record and his frequent alliances with the Left, all must acknowledge that his legislative and naval service entitle him to a dignified retirement.
But they don’t entitle him to a renomination certain to go down in flames in November, possibly taking the majority with him in what is sure to be terribly challenging year for the GOP’s U.S. Senate prospects.
So What’s To Be Done?
The issue is clear: The Republican Party needs to nominate someone else in Illinois in 2016. One question is who… but first, an earlier question must be resolved: will it be with the party’s support or over the party’s proverbial dead body?
At this writing, both the national and state Republican Party apparatus are all-in for a Mark Kirk re-nomination. There are many possible reasons why, some too depressing to contemplate, but it’s worth stressing that the state and national party’s reasons may indeed be very different.
The national party tends to take its cue on such matters from the state party. The farther you get from Washington, the more likely the RNC is to assume that locals can better gauge the lay of the land than they can. And yes, in most cases, this is probably true.
But not in this case. For whatever reason the state party is still discouraging challengers, the fact is that a Kirk nomination will both doom the seat and deny everyone downballot of every a prayer of their needed coattails effect. The national party needs to overrule the state in this case, and send out the word, to PACs and other donor databases, that Illinois needs an open primary.
The donors will come… and so will the candidates… but only when the party sends out the word that it’s okay. Maybe it shouldn’t be that way, but we’re living in Realville, so let’s acknowledge the fact.
The question is therefore how to get there? How do we send the word that Kirk is unacceptable and a primary is needed?
The logical way is for the party’s grassroots to make it known. Illinois has 102 counties. Many of those counties, particularly the most populous ones, have party organizations at the township level.
If we want to have a chance at holding this Senate seat in 2016, each and every party organization needs to vote on a resolution, short and sweet:
“Resolved; in the interest of holding Illinois’ sole seat in the U.S. Senate, this organization calls for a vigorous primary to select a new nominee – other than the incumbent – who can win in November.”
It becomes plainer every day that a new nominee is needed, and it has now become clear that this is the only way to get the national party to see reason on the matter. The national party cannot possibly deny such a call from dozens – or hopefully even a majority – of the party organizations across Illinois.
Grassroots have been responsible for many of the key electoral victories that Republicans have enjoyed. Remember that the party leadership stood in the way of Illinois’ favorite son, Ronald Reagan, until the grassroots won him the nomination in 1980 so he could win us his two landslide elections.
The time has come for the grassroots to act again.
Copyright 2015 John F. Di Leo
John F. Di Leo is a Chicago-based trade compliance expert and writer. A former movement conservative activist during the Reagan era, he served in leadership roles in the Maine Township Republican Organization in the 1980s and as Milwaukee County Republican Chairman in the mid 1990s.
Permission is hereby granted to forward freely, provided it is uncut and the IR URL and byline are included. Follow John F. Di Leo on Facebook or LinkedIn, or on Twitter at @johnfdileo, or on his own page at www.johnfdileo.com.
Why did you ever vote for Kirk? He was my congressman, and I’ve never voted for him. He was as liberal as all of the Democrats that he defeated.
I voted f him against Alexi.
I’m truly sorry. It won’t happen again.
L
Don’t worry about it. The election was pre-fixed for him, anyhow, so your vote didn’t mean diddly squat - ditto your vote for the real victor of the 2010 Gubernatorial race, Bill Brady, pre-fixed for the Combiner choice, the “Mighty” Quinn.
I was thinking it’s too bad we can’t recruit Mike Ditka, but unfortunately, he’d turn 78(!) in his first year in the Senate (in 2017). We should’ve moved heaven and earth to get him to run in 2004. Of course, then, we’d have just been finishing up 2 terms of Hillary (and we’d be sitting in reeducation camps).
Interesting that the Heritage Foundation could cherry pick some votes that would have her come out a point ahead, but I have to throw cold water on this.
A fuller examination shows the WIDE gulf between even the worst of Republicans and the average rat.
The ACU has it lifetime Kirk 57.5, Suckworthless 10. For 2014 it was 64 to 4.
I’d wager he votes the right way at least half the time, her, almost never. I doubt she’s genuinely to his right on ANY issues, least of all abortion where her position is the SAME. We all knew Kirk was pro-abortion. I am surprised Susan Collins had the decency to vote against Planned Parenthood, not that Kirk didn’t. If you want to oppose him, period, I can respect that. But don’t pretend Suckworth isn’t JUST as liberal as he on abortion and guns and a GREAT deal more so on many other issues.
My position has not changed. I’ll not have that crippled bitch for a Senator, to compete with Turban and Luis for my enmity. Kirk is swine, I choose swine over plague-bearing rats 10 times out of 10. We will have to agree not to agree on that.
If Kirk was still in the House I might say “eh, ***k him” but the Senate is not to be trifled with. 54 seats, 4 or 5 votes removed from GD Chuck Schumer as Majority Leader. A man who would make most of us here (with sense) yearn to have “that RINO POS” Mitch McConnell back in the driver’s seat. I’ll cry tears of rage if that bitch is elected, even over Kirk. I’ll cheer every dollar the NRSC sends here in defense.
Kirk’s only primary challenger as of yet is Ron Wallace, an unknown with no money and no hope to raise it, I think he ran for something else before, I can’t recall what, perhaps he thought of running and quit, 9th district?. He’s on Facebook and Twitter, no website, that alone puts him among the dreggiest dregs of candidates. Make no mistake, Ron Wallace’s chances of beating Kirk are ZERO. Not 1%. Not 0.5% Zero. It isn’t gonna happen. Not for him. He’ll be lucky to make the ballot. If he’s it, I myself might vote for him, but he’ll not be within 40 points of Kirk, be under no illusions about that.
Suckworthless’ old foe Joe Walsh hasn’t ruled it out yet, I don’t think. I’d give him a solid 10% chance if he gets in, of course Wallace would stay in the race, robbing him of a few points. And he’d lose to any democrat because he’s a weak caliber of candidate who was lucky to squeak by Mellisa Bean in 2010, thanks only to the Green Party taking votes from her.
Might someone who could actually win emerge from the shadows and actually run? I don’t believe in miracles.
Our only real chance to get a better Senator is if Kirk’s health turns and forces him from the race (or from this mortal coil).
RINO hunters who mean to make a kill would best head to deserts of Arizona and the snowfields of Alaska, the weeds grow tall in Illinois.
A random millionaire would be welcome. No, not Oberduche, a fresh one. Money talks, facebook walks.
Both of those races were affected by third-party candidates. Mark beat Alexi by about 83,000 votes, and the Green Party candidate, LeAlan Jones, got about 113,000 votes. If Jones didn’t run, Alexi would have run. Quinn beat Brady by about 20,000 votes and the Libertarian Party candidate, Lex Green, got about 34,000 votes. If Green didn’t run, Brady would have won.
Accurate analysis and applicable to any race of a RINO v. a Dem. During the primaries it’s critical to find the most true conservative possible that can be elected. After that beating the Dems is the critical point. I’ll be supporting Kirk at this point. I don’t see anyone going up against him in the primary. We need to hold the Senate and House while we elect a GOP POTUS in 2016.
Even more important than the possibility that the RATs might take the Senate in 2016 is the fact that, if Duckworth gets elected, it will be for a 6-year term. This is not a mere House seat, where we get a do-over two years later and could kick out a RAT that defeated a RINO to one of 435 seats. A lot of damage can be done in 6 years, particularly since 6 could easily become 12 or 18.
Kirk is crap, no question, and I am perfectly comfortable viewing his glass a 50% empty or 60% empty. But Duckworth’s glass is 95% empty, so a race between the two is a no-brainer. And I would love for a viable, conservative Republican to run and defeat both Kirk and Duckworth, but that is a very rate creature in Illinois—Congressman Peter Roskam may be the only person to fit that description, but he won’t risk the wrath of the Combine by running against Kirk—but supporting a candidate that perhaps can defeat Kirk in the primary but would get slaughtered by Duckworth in the general would be cutting off our nose to spite our face.
1010RD, why will you support Kirk, in the primary? If you’re conservative, why won’t you support a conservative, in the primary?
You presume that the 3rd party voters would necessarily vote for the other candidates. They might’ve not voted for that office. It’s like if I were given a choice between Zero and Willard and nothing else, I wasn’t voting for Willard under any circumstances and no way for Zero.
As I also said, the votes were cooked in Cook for what was needed.
Yep, that strategy worked great when Arlen Specter and Linc Chafee were up for re-election, because we all know RINOs with an "R" next to their name would NEVER turn traitor AFTER being re-elected and go caucus with the Dems so THEY end up with a majority...
Oops! Nevermind.
I wouldn’t vote for RINOs Lamar! or Corker, so it’s a good thing I can’t vote in IL, because I would drop an anvil on my tallywhacker before I’d cast a vote for that evil Combiner scum Kirk.
Mark Kirk is the Lincoln Chaffee of Illinois.
That’s a risk with these kinds.
Jeffords and Specter did it. (L Chaffee did AFTER losing in 2006 as an R)
I don’t see it from Kirk. But couldn’t rule it out. Specter’s primary defeat as a D was a boon to discouraging that kind of thing (and he only did it because he was gonna lose to Toomey in the GOP primary, self-preservation was his only goal)
The central point though, Duckworth is a D so 100% chance the seat is D if she beats Kirk or if a Republican that can’t win is nominated, so even if you wanna exaggerate the risk of Kirk switching, I would say so what.
I’d be all in for someone better than Kirk that could actually beat both him and the democrats as I think we all would. Ron Wallace is not that guy as to either proposition. We’ll not capture Fort Knox armed with water guns.
I absolutely believe Kirk would switch parties in a heartbeat IF the Combine ordered him to or to serve their interests. He is their useful tool at present within the majority “R” caucus.
During the primaries it’s critical to find the most true conservative possible that can be elected. After that beating the Dems is the critical point. I’ll be supporting Kirk at this point. I don’t see anyone going up against him in the primary. We need to hold the Senate and House while we elect a GOP POTUS in 2016.
That’s the only way going forward. Good thinking and it’s applicable to every state in the union. The worst RINO is a ton better than the Democrat. I cannot think of a recent election in which the opposite was true.
Specter was a Democrat from 1951 to 1965, then a Republican from 1965 until 2009, when he switched back to the Democratic Party. First elected in 1980, he represented his state for 30 years in the Senate.
On April 28, 2009, Specter announced that, after 44 years as an elected Republican, he was switching membership to the Democratic Party.[7][8] On May 18, 2010, Specter was defeated in the Democratic primary by Joe Sestak, who then lost to Pat Toomey in the general election. Toomey succeeded Specter on January 3, 2011.
As of 2012 Specter will no longer caucus with anybody in the Senate. Chafee is a flake and that's that.
It takes two things to win any election: votes and money. You don't even need 50% plus one vote to win. Clinton won with less than half the votes thanks to Perot. Trump (D-NY) is only a viable candidate because of the media he can personally generate and his money.
In Illinois, Kirk has a massive war chest and broad support. The GOTV activity is critical and that's something the party bosses from the ground up can provide. Right now there is no viable conservative candidate because any thinking person can see that Kirk is in a very strong position. Nobody wants to tilt at windmills. The Illinois conservative bench is shallow.
That's the reality. We can imagine anything, but the reality is Kirk is best positioned to win against the Democrat. Letting the Democrat win is the worst case. That's politics. If you want your sandwich made to order that only happens in the free market.
1010RD, I read your post to which I replied. You said, “I’ll be supporting Kirk at this point.” He’s had a conservative primary opponent (Ron Wallace) since June 6. I hope that you’ll help him by volunteering and/or donating to his campaign. Mr. Wallace is pro-life, pro-gun rights, and anti-illegal alien. I agree that we need to hold the Senate and House in 2016.
That has never held true at any point. A RINO leftist accomplishes things a regular leftist Democrat cannot. #1, they enact the opposition leftist Democrat agenda, #2, they get the rest of the Republican party painted with the failure of their agenda, #3, the Democrats clean up at the next election. If the choice is a Democrat and a leftist RINO, let it go to the Democrats and let THEM get the credit and blame for that appalling leftist agenda.
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