I can give you a pass on Simon since it was before the internet made it easy to look up voting records. But if you had you would have noticed that as awful Percy was (American Conservative Union lifetime rating 30% same as IL Dem Senator Dixon at the time, 50% for 1984) Simon was a hardcore leftist (ACU lifetime at the time, 6%) not to mention wanted Bob Byrd back as a Majority Leader. I remember fondly how my late grandma detested that bow-tied freak. Basically it was just like Mark Kirk vs. Suckworth except Simon could walk and wasn’t pregnant with a change of life baby.
I was a just a wee HS freshman in 1998 but I recall being glad Poshard won the rat nomination, my libtard teacher was only “reluctantly” supporting him over Ryan and I recall a young Black student parroting his mother in decrying how shocking it was that the man opposed abortion! How uncivilized!
Of course I had no idea what RINO Disaster Ryan would be or I would likely backed Poshard. Redistricting however would have given me serious pause as the Governor elected that year was gonna preside over it and the GOP taking back the State House to enable full control was a district possibility. Alas while Ryan won the rats kept the State House in both 1998 and 2000 and won redistricting by drawing a name out of a hat, there may never be a Republican legislature here again.
You make good points. I was so pissed at Percy that I naively ignored the gravity of control of the senate.
Poshard v Ryan was another low point in illannoy. We are still paying for it.