[SusanUSA]

Ping

[Pistias]

What an option. Blagojevich or Ryan. I love the two-party system.

[Roman33]

Wow. This article is for real! Here It is Friday, March 22, and the primary is over and just an hour ago I saw a Nasty attack ad against Ryan asking people to support Patrick O'Malley for gov.

[GraniteStateConservative]

...O'Malley has vowed to do whatever he can to help defeat Ryan in November. This is in keeping with his reputation as a loner and an ideological purist.

Hey, he must be a FReeper. I bet he voted for Howard Phillips for President-- along with 56 other people in the state. Message received, O'Malley!

[IncPen]

While Wood was busy futilely courting Democrats, O'Malley actually worked to win over traditional Republicans.

Let the record show that Corrine Wood wasn't just benignly courting Democrats.

She had 'author' Scott Turow on camera saying "Vote for Corrine in the Primary, and vote whoever you want in November".

The gist of this was that Wood, because she wasn't slated by the party, sought to destroy it and Ryan (George, the corrupt current Governor and Jim - no relation- the GOP choice for November).

Corrine Wood is finished in Illinois, and she's probably done more damage than any Democrat could have hoped for.

[John Farson]

but [O'Malley] eventually failed to distinguish himself from Ryan, who has long been popular with conservatives.

The author doesn't know what he is talking about. Jim Ryan is a anti-gunner.

[Barnacle]

One very well-known Republican strategist and friend of Gov. Ryan has met Wood more than three dozen times, including at small dinner events, yet she cluelessly introduces herself each time as if it is the first time the two have met.

She's a ditz. But a vicious ditz at that.

[usconservative]

Wood's campaign strategy reflected her political ineptness. She effectively alienated every core Republican constituency, leaving many to wonder why she chose to run in the GOP primary. "We're all scratching our heads that she chose to run in the Republican party," says veteran political consultant Larry Hoffman. "In Republican primaries in Illinois," he notes, "conservatives do a lot better than moderates-and she ran as a liberal."

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.

[usconservative]

While Wood was busy futilely courting Democrats, O'Malley actually worked to win over traditional Republicans. He ran as the "true conservative" in the race, but he eventually failed to distinguish himself from Ryan, who has long been popular with conservatives.

Jim Ryan is as popular with Conservatives in this state as Corinne Wood is. Ryan got a plurality of the vote, not a MAJORITY.

To say there is no difference between Jim Ryan and Pat O'Malley is but one indication that the writer of the article made no attempt other than to take a cursory, surface view of the two candidates. O'Malley is unabashedly pro-life. Jim Ryan "apologised" numerous times for being so.

Jim Ryan's anti-business litigation in joining the feds in the litigation against Microsoft drew no support from O'Malley.

And that's just for starters.