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EDITOR OF REDSTATE

Illinois Democrats Recognize They Are Toast

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  December 16th, 2008 at 08:55 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Speaker of the Illinois House, Mike Madigan, abruptly shut down the Illinois House yesterday to avoid a vote on having a special election to fill Barack Obama’s unexpired Senate term.

Madigan’s daughter was on the “acceptable” list of people Blago and Obama agreed to.

Madigan wants his daughter to have a chance and would rather let a corrupt Governor or his flunky Pat Quinn appoint Obama’s replacement than leave it up to the people to decide.

Why? The people are more than a little hacked off with the Democrats in Illinois and Mark Kirk is considering a run. Kirk is a very popular Republican in Illinois. He’s to the left of most here on social issues, but he wins his Chicago area district consistently getting a demographic of voters the GOP lusts after.

Madigan and the Democratic establishment in Illinois want no part of Kirk. So they’ll let the new Senator be appointed under a cloud of corruption and suspicion. That’s a safer bet than letting the people decide.

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COMMENTS

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  • dld1717

    I bet Kirk could beat any of those leading contenders especially all the prospective Democrat congressional people thinking of running.

  • Moe Lane

    And I like the idea of making the Democrats spend money that they don’t actually have on defense.

    ‘Course, Illinois Democrats know that they’re at risk here, and they’re as craven as they are venal; so of course they’ll do everything in their power to avoid giving their electorate a chance to make their wishes known on this race.

  • dld1717

    A win in Obama’s backyard not even months after he won would be a huge win for us.

  • http://conservablogs.com/publiusforum/ Warner Todd Huston

    A small but important point to make here. Pat Quinn is NOT Blago’s flunkie. In fact he is preternaturally an outsider. He is not close to EITHER party.

    If he made the choice, it would be not so bad, perhaps. However, it is certainly impossible that he’d chose a Republican, that is granted.

  • bk

    Initially the Dems were talking about taking away Blago’s power by forcing a special election, then as soon as the GOP agreed the Dem did a U-turn and realized a bought and paid for Dem is better than any possible Republican.

  • Vise77

    reading that Quinn is somebody’s “flunkie” made me chuckle. Most political leaders in this state treat Quinn as an annoyance, an example of a “goo-goo”–a good government type that is, obviously, relatively rare in this state. That’s not to say Quinn is effective, mind you, only that is is not anybody’s flunkie.

    Kirk would be a fine choice, by the way.

  • jfpurdue01

    The Illinois GOP is so inept that they cannot outmaneuver the democrat machine in that state. I lived there for 28 years and while the state leans ever-so-slightly to the right overall, they cannot win an election to save their lives. Judy Baar Topinka was the head of the ILGOP and tried bringing in Alan Keyes to go up against Obama. There was only one reason for that move and I’ll let you figure it out. The result was a HUGE (and easy) win for Obama. There were plenty of good candidates in IL to choose from. The Topinka saw that the people couldn’t stand Blago and it was highly likely that a republican would oust him in 2006, so she positioned herself to be his challenger. Of course Blago won.

    Net result of Topinka’s power in the ILGOP? Obama becomes senator, then President; Blago get’s re-elected and tries to sell Obama’s senate seat, resulting in a huge political corruption scandal. If the ILGOP had someone even halfway intelligent running the show in 2004 and 2006, the country would look much different right now. Thanks, Judy.

  • jdub19

    this would be a sure win

  • jfpurdue01

    How about Peter Fitzgerald to take over his former senate seat? He retired, claiming family issues as well as problems trying to deal with Topinka and the state party leadership. He only served one term as senator and at the time was the youngest member of the senate. He defeated Carol Mosley Braun in 1998. If he doesn’t run for his old senate seat, maybe he would run for governor.

  • redneck_hippie

    will allow a special election.

    The people can’t be allowd their say. So much for Democrat version of Democracy.

    Kinda like Card Check, you know?

    What if the people actually had a choice in who their Senator would be. Or whether they had to divulge their preferences vis a vis unionization.

    A pox on all their houses.