Whom did you support in the 2010 U.S. Senate primary? I voted for Don Lowery. Kirk was my congressman, and I’ve never voted for him. If I thought that the race would be close, I would have voted for him. In Oct. 2010, I thought that his race wouldn’t be close, so I voted for Mike Labno, the Libertarian.
I voted for Hughes in the primary, after having met him when he came to Rockford.
In the general, I actually voted for the Dem., as I see both men as equally bad, but a Kirk type will wield influence in the Rep. party. Coming from the northeast, I have seen what can happen when an almost competitive Republican Party decides to go mushy middle.
They often will win a high profile election (Weicker, Scott Brown, William Weld, Schwarzenegger, William Weld, George Ryan, JOhn Rowland, Jody Rell), but only at the expense of statewide party identity. When I was a 14 year old idealist in 1976, I remember going door to door for Republicans, not as part of anything official, I just did it.) I couldn’t believe how many people would say that they didn’t like or know any of the Republicans, but that they were okay with Weicker. This is not the way to build a party, or to get conservative things done. We were better off with Leiberman, except that freed Weicker to ruin CT as an “independent” (read, Termite RINO) candidate. It would have been better if Miles Rappoport or that Jody guy or whomever beat him early on.