[neocon1984]

I agree on most of your points. The partial birth abortion issue is very harmful to Kirk.

Fitzgerald had some social conservative views. However, people forget that he was truly a maverick who mostly focused on less government in all aspects of our lives. In my mind that is a libertarian point of view.

[BillyBoy]

Fitzgerald was no more "libertarian" than the average Republican is. Like most Republicans, he agreed with libertarians on economic policies and reducing the size of government, but disagreed with libertarians on social policy and a strong military. You are the first person I have heard refer to Fitzgerald's policies as "libertarian". I must have missed what specific "libertarian" policies he ran on -- was it legalizing drugs, legalizing prostitution, allowing anyone to marry who they want, having open borders, returning America to the gold standard, ending the federal death penalty, cutting foreign aide to all countries, removing US involvement in all foreign wars, being a gun-rights absolutist? If he stood for all those things, then libertarians would be pretty happy with him. Seems to me he wasn't in their camp on any of them. The fact he was against big government in general doesn't make him libertarian, it makes him a conservative.

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald (no relation to the man who appointed him) is enormously popular with Illinois conservatives, unlike national conservatives where he is despised. That's because national conservatives are ignorant and base their entire opinion of the man based on the Scooter Libby case, and have no clue that "partisan Democrat" Patrick Fitzgerald has indicted and imprisoned dozens of Democrat machine politicians, including the highest ranking circles of Daley's henchmen. Go on IllinoisReview and other forums for Illinois conservatives, and you'd see that his appointment was applauded by Illinois conservatives because the combine was against it. A lot of Illinois conservatives want Patrick Fitzgerald to run for Governor.

Yes, the fact Fitzgerald is very wealthy and was able to self-fund his campaign was instrumental in ensuring he'd win -- and you know why? Because the RINO infested party leadership refused to spent one cent on him and wrote him off as "unelectable" after he won the primary. If the state party would play ball with conservatives, they wouldn't have to spend vast amounts of their own money to be competitive.

Given the recent showing by Sauerberg and Topinka, seems to me that "centrists" have shown absolutely no evidence they are magically more "electable" than conservatives. Topinka was a well known statewide elected official running against an unpopular governor and Sauerberg was a very wealthy medical doctor running against a Senator that Illinoisans were indifferent on, and one that had hurt his re-election prospects by comparing our troops to NAZIs.

So Illinois Republicans gave the "centrists" their chance. What's their excuse for losing in a landslide?

[Impy]

“Fitzgerald had some social conservative views. However, people forget that he was truly a maverick who mostly focused on less government in all aspects of our lives. In my mind that is a libertarian point of view.”

Well it OUGHT to be the position of both conservatives and libertarians.

Fitz was for some gun control, that wasn’t libertarian, one of his few blemishes along with opposing ANWR drilling.