I’ll have the same reaction, if Kirk wins the primary, with under 50%. When he ran for the U.S. House, in 2000, the race had 11 Republicans. Kirk won the primary, with 31%. He probably hopes that will happen, in 2010.
However, the unfortunate reality of the situation is that Pat Hughes is the only one able to get his message out. No one has heard of Arrington or Lowery outside of their home towns. A bunch of so-called conservative "leaders" had a little closed door meeting and decided Hughes is the one, so rather than pick the best conservative they decided to go with the guy that had the "most money" and shoved everyone else to the sidelines. I don't agree with that decision (as Phil noted, the ideal situation would be to have a statewide conservative straw poll and get all the Senate candidates to agree to drop out and throw their support behind whoever wins, but the Hughes people didn't want to do that because they were afraid they'd lose). And quite frankly I'm sick of the conservatives in Illinois who keep beating the "wealthy outsider = victory" dead horse.
Still, we do have to face reality now that Hughes is likely to get the most votes because of the bullying efforts from our conservative "leaders". With Eric Wallace out of the primary (though not out of the limelight because he's gearing up to run as an Indy against Kirk in the fall if the RINO wins the primary), national leaders have begun to coalesce behind Hughes as well. Unless the situation chances drastically, Hughes is probably going to pose the biggest threat to Kirk.
As spintreebob noted the best thing Hughes has going for him now is that he's not Mark Kirk. To Hughes credit, he's done an excellent job researching Kirk's record and is able to articulate to the public the truth about how Kirk is really a liberal extremist and backstabber. His message is spot on. Hughes has been less successful at promoting himself to the public and has made several mistakes early in the campaign that are typical of first time candidates. Right now the Kirk people can argue Hughes isn't ready for prime time. Let's pray he improves and gets his act together for the rest of the primary.
Yes have multiple candidates splitting the conservative vote but I don't see the situation comparable to 2006 when Oberweis had lost multiple times in a row yet a bunch of conservatives were demanding we all vote for him anyway to "stop Topinka" because he had the most name recognition, nevermind the fact he would have been steamrolled by Blago in November and been as helpful in advancing the conservative cause as Keyes was, morale victory of "beating Topinka" aside.
Hughes isn't likely to hurt us at the top of the ticket the way Oberweis would have, and I doubt any of the Hughes supporters will start a sleazy whisper campaign claiming anyone who doesn't like Hughes is a "Kirk plant" the way Obie's fan club did with that "Bill Brady is a Topinka plant" garbage (which yes, many Oberweis supporters STILL rehash as an anti-Brady argument FOUR YEARS LATER, in spite of spintreebob saying everyone has "gotten over it". I'll believe it when they stop the conspiracy theory stuff and just own up to the fact Brady was the better conservative candidate in '06). Ask Impy, you still hear the "Brady is bad cuz he's bed with Topinka" argument on a regular basis.
Bottom line is I'm probably going to end up voting for Hughes in February, but whether he can "beat Kirk" depends on whether Hughes can get his act together.