The problem here was you had an established GOP congressman (Kirk) running against several, relatively unknown candidates. This isn’t a Marco Rubio or Pat Toomey situation. Kirk’s challengers were virtual unknowns, plus there were several of them. Pretty hard to win in that scenario. Also, Kirk didn’t win with a plurality - he won a solid majority. So that suggests that there just wasn’t enough conservative grassroots opposition to him.
Whatever the case may be, it would be silly to not vote for Kirk over a Dem in the general - even considering his very moderate record. This is Obama’s seat we’re talking about here.
I can never vote for someone who thinks its OK to suck the brains out of a baby. I don’t give a rip about “symbolic” warfare over Obama’s seat. IMHO, Obama is a hardened, committed leftist warrior. He will be OK with a leftist Republican taking his seat if it serves to 1) advance leftist ideology, and 2) neutralizes a strong reaction from the right by providing them with a superficial trinket they can brag about.
No, what we have in Illinois is 1) a giant class of unionized government workers who see their interests aligned with big government, and 2) a largely uninformed electorate with no established network for learning what individual candidates are really about. We have a long tradition of trusting party label, regardless of content. I know for a fact there are people who will be horrified to learn later on they voted for a partial birth abortion advocate. Today, as they cast their vote, they had no idea who he is or what he represents. All they saw was the R next to a somewhat familiar name. Tragic.
BTW, I predicted this outcome. Furthermore, the only means we now have at our disposal to advance conservative in time for November is to go outside the two-party system. I know many of you here at FR do not want to hear this, but it’s just true. There is still time before next November to educate Illinoisans as to why a vote for the R or the D amounts to the same thing, why they need to think outside the box if they really want to throw off the shackles of the Chicago Cabal. This isn’t going to be easy, but it can be done. We just need to work together instead of pulling ourselves apart with internecine and somewhat Orwellian arguments about why we conservatives have to vote for anti-conservative candidates in order to advance conservatism.
[Whatever the case may be, it would be silly to not vote for Kirk over a Dem in the general - even considering his very moderate record]
His record is not “moderate.” It is liberal/progressive. We don’t need someone like him in this seat for the media to slap on every “news” show.