Our illustrious Illinois GOP party chairman:
I disagree with Bob that McKenna would be a weak Senate candidate. LaHood recruited him personally to "take out" Fitzgerald. McKenna fooled a lot of conservatives who backed him in 2004 for Senate and 2005 for Chairman. As a first time candidate he came in 4th place (in a field of 9 candidates), but came in 2nd downstate. Before McKenna was chairman, we kind of had a game of "musical chairs" with our state party chairman -- each of them (Williamson, Daniels, Ingemunson, MacDougal, Topinka, etc.) would last about a year on average, and be kicked out the moment Illinois Republicans lost some office on their watch. Under McKenna, we've probably lost more offices than the last four chairman combined, but he's completely consolidated his support with the GOP establishment and manages to have complete control of the party for five years now. No one has dared challenge him for the chairmanship.
If McKenna ran, he's portray himself as a conservative again (anti-bailout, anti-cap-and-trade) and all the conservative organizations in this state (NRA, Right-to-Life, etc.) would be on board. Plus he's from an extremely wealthy family and can spent zillions of his own money.
Of course if you meet the guy he makes Bob Dole seem exciting.
Between McKenna, Kirk, and Obama, Ray LaThug is going to have a hard time deciding which one he loves more. Poor guy.
My guess is Kirk formally kicks off his Senate campaign next week, and the state and national party clear the field to anoint McKenna as Kirk's successor in the House. McKombine would probably agree to those terms.