Mark Kirk was my congressme`n, and I’ve never voted for Kirk. Why did he get a majority of the vote, in the 2010 primary? Either the majority of republican primary voters are as liberal as he is, or they were too lazy to learn his views.
Kirk had no viable opponent, because the Combine put out the word he was to get none and extracted key endorsements to boot. If any elected official went off script and opposed him, they were to get the Peter Fitzgerald treatment.
There was a lot of minimization of Kirk’s liberalism, even here, I certainly doubt most primary voters (who are not that engaged, let’s face it) are fully aware. His media image is “electable mainstream moderate”. He had the entire state party behind him and a favorable press.
I think a SINGULAR strong challenger could have beaten him. But you can’t beat something with nothing, Pat Hugues was an awful candidate, Judge Lowry was a non-entity. Neither had a prayer against he well funded, anointed, “electable” Kirk. Nobodies who have never won a major office before just don’t win US Senate elections, unless they’re really rich and they spend a yachtload of their own green to buy name recognition and media attention.
We needed a Congressman like Roskam or at least a State Senator or something (Ala Pete F. who beat Loretta D. in 1998) to oppose Kirk. It was a lost cause with the challengers we had. The combine saw to it that no one of note opposed him, and conservative officeholders mostly got on board and backed him.