I’m not so sure we’d have a better chance in 2010 than a special, I’d think Republicans would be much more motivated to turnout in a special?
But I agree with your other points , Burris would stand a very good chance of losing the special primary, we need him as the rat nominee. And an 18-month term isn’t worth much, (although we need all the Senators we can get right now.)
“Republicans would be much more motivated to turnout in a special?”
Than the rats I mean.
I agree that we’d have a better chance of winning in a 2009 special than a 2010 regular. But my concern is that a victory over Burris in a low-turnout 2009 special would be pyrric, given that it would get Burris out of the picture and allow the Democrats to nominate a stronger candidate in 2010 and greatly reduce our chances of holding the seat from 2011-2017. Frankly, I think I’d rather let the Dems keep the Senate seat for the 18 months prior to January 2011 if it improves our chances of winning the 6-year term in November 2010.
Of course, some may argue that winning a special election this coming summer would help the GOP to win the 6-year term in 2010, since we would have an incumbent running for reelection. However, I think that whomever would be our candidate in 2010 would be better off running as a non-incumbent against the incumbent Burris than running as an incumbent against a non-incumbent Shakowsky or Madigan.
At the end of the day, though, the decision on whether to hold a special election will be made solely by the Democrats, so we can have this philosophical discussion without risk that we’ll make a bad decision, since there is no decision for us to make.