She did more than "run" as a liberal - she is a liberal! Corinne Wood's entire campaign was focused on "choice." She figured since she was running against one stringently pro-life candidate (O'Malley) and one "allegedly" pro-life candidate (Jim Ryan) she was going to court the woman vote and focus on CHOICE.
The problem for Wood was two-fold. First, the "choice" issue didn't resonate well with suburban soccer sucker mom's. Wood's over-emphasis at being the only "pro-abortion" candidate in the Republican primaries turned out to be a major turn off, notably to Republican women in the state.
The second problem for Wood, was that once her campaign relized she wasn't resonating with Republican Women, she switched tactics and openly courted the DemocRAT cross-over vote. Every radio and TV ad that Wood ran post Sept. 30th emphasised ABORTION RIGHTS and told Democrats effectively that by crossing over and voting for her, they weren't jeopardizing their party registration.
On top of that, the DemocRAT primaries really heated up in the remaining month of the campaign, and any chance Wood had at courting cross-over votes literally vanished before her eyes. Paul Vallas came on VERY strong in the closing three weeks of the election and came close to beating Rod Blowhardovitch in the Democrat primary. Turnout in the Democrat primary was HUGE, dwarfing the turnout of the Republican primary. This is yet another indication that Republican's are in trouble come November.
Ryan's specific problems in getting his Republican primary opponents to endorse him now carries some special problems.
First, Ryan refused to stand up for LIFE, and back-peddled away from his previous pro-life stance. He was downright apologetic during the campaign in numerous appearances for being pro-life. Corinne Wood pinned Ryan in a corner in several public debates, forcing Ryan to apologize for being against abortion. This turned off the Conservative base towards Ryan.
Second, O'Malley hammered away on Ryan for failing to investigate statewide corruption, notably in the "licenses for bribes" scandal that rocked the Secretary of State's office 4 years ago, and is the main reason George Ryan isn't running for re-election. O'Malley is also *pissed* at Ryan's dissing of the Conservative wing of the party by backing away from Ryan's "alleged" pro-life stance.
If Jim Ryan manages to get *either* Corinne Wood or Pat O'Malley to endorse him, it's going to be a major political victory for him, and a miracle. Frankly, I don't see it happening. Many pro-life Conservatives in this state are already talking about sitting out the Governor's race in November. Those sentiments are bolstered by a recent (yesterday?) poll by the Chicago Sun Times which shows Rod Blowhardovitch with a commanding 18-20 point lead in the Governor's race.
Jim Ryan's in big trouble, and unless he comes back to the Conservative wing of the party and makes amends, he's going to be looking for employment come November.
Bank on it.
I'd even vote for Wood, whom I would despise if I lived in IL over that guy.
The saddest part of sitting out is that if the conservatives do that, then the GOP gets killed down the ticket as well, and those toss up seats go Dem in congress. That's what so many people don't understand when they sit out an election.
If I can't bring myself to vote for anyone on the pres or governor ticket, I'll still vote for the congressional, state reps, and state senate seats. It doesn't make sense to sit out and punish Congressman Mike Rogers who is doing a good job, for what Joe Governor is doing.