McKenna says he's out if Kirk is in

Statement from the ILGOP Chairman Andy McKenna: “As Party Chairman my goal has been to build Party unity. Mark Kirk and I met last evening as part of an ongoing discussion about the U. S. Senate race. I reassured Mark that if he chooses to be a candidate, I will not oppose him.”

Comments

[Dave]

thank god

[spintreebob]

In a Kirk, Wallace race, McKenna couldn't even pull enough to play the role of spoiler.

[sam pierce is an idiot]

LOL who are you kidding spintreebob? If Wallace manages to even pull 5% in the Republican Primary he should get down on his knees and thank God. He has no chance.

[Mark Rhoads]

That will teach me to be careful what I wish for. McKenna is not a great speaker and his record as state party chair does not inspire confidence that he could run a credible race. But Mark Kirk, while OK on some national defense issues maybe, does not exactly fire up the conservative base with his poor record on social and ecomonis issues. An Illinois GOP primary often plays out like the Spanish Civil War of the late 1930s, you really don't want to see either side win because no matter who wins the nomination you wind up with a yet another RINO in office so its a net loss.

[Conservative Veteran]

I agree with Bob. Dr. Wallace might able to defeat Rep. Kirk. Few republican primary voters will vote for a candidate who is pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, pro-gun control, pro-spending increases, pro-illegal alien, and anti-Iraq surge.

[Felix]

Uh huh, Con Vet. Notice in the online poll on this website, Wallace gets 40.6 % to Kirk's 43.4 %. NO DOUBT similar results will obtain in the Republican primary, especially given that Wallace blogs here and most people writing in are far to the right.
Tell Wallace to stop using that "PhD" after his name and calling himself "Doctor" - it's pretentious.

[Felix]

Mark, yours is exactly the mentality I was talking about. You'd rather see a Dem who votes against us 70% of the time than a Republican who votes with us 70% of the time.
This even as we face a 60 Democrat seat US Senate. If you don't think Mark Kirk would vote with us most of the time then as opposed to a Democrat who wouldn't, you're just focusing on a few votes you don't like and exaggerating that into equivalence with Democrats. If you can't stop the Democrats with 100% conservatives (as defined by you) you don't want to stop them at all.
You can't imagine shades of red and blue - for you there's only dead Red and Blue. If you're not dead Red, you are therefore a Democrat/RINO. All of this is pathetically self-congratulatory on your part since you're one of the PURE ones. Which is your major psychological motivation in being an enforcer of purity. Now you'll probably sniff and refuse to participate in electing a Republican because that gives you the only role left for you, that of a spoiler. If stopping a Republican is the only way for you to show some power, you'll choose that out of pique. And then complain for years after that as the Democrats push through their agenda.

[Laura]

Why would any republican vote for Kirk?????

[Chris Robling]

Andy has acted in the best traditions of effective party leadership and he should be commended. I deeply appreciate Mark's statement, but differ with my friend the eloquent former Western Springs solon, as I have said before.

Mark Kirk will lead the ticket in 2010 and he will be elected U.S. Senator.

Our next order of business after supporting our Senate nominee is building a winning total for our gubernatorial candidate, who will appear immediately below on the fall ballot.

As important as the Senate is to national security, supreme court nominations and other Presidential appointments, the Governorship is to righting our state and preventing an opportunistic power grab via redistricting by the people who brought us to bankruptcy's door.

For us locally, it is the ballgame. Mark and Andy are doing their respective parts to give us a big total to work with. Let's try to get every Senate voter to travel down to Governor on the Republican side.

[Laura]

LOL @ Chris on so many different levels.

[Felix]

Gee, gosh, Laura, I don't know, his district is just about half-and-half Dem/Rep voter ID. It's now PVI Dem + 6, up from Dem PVI =1 just a couple years ago. His Dem opponents manage to get at least 30-45% of the vote, and since no Republican you can think of could EVER vote for him, it's just a MYSTERY how he keeps winning and winning since 2000.

[David Hale]

No matter which Republican is put up against the already damaged Democratic Senate Candidate the Republican Party will win this seat. So why put Mark Kirk up for this seat? He votes 53 percent Conservative in the Congress now. His vote FOR Cap and Trade was the last straw for his candidacy. He is not a Republican, and if the Republican machine decides to support this weak Neo-Democrat in the Primaries my vote will forever be lost in the Republican Party.

David Hale
Director, RockfordTeaParty

[elginite]

Kirk's ACU rating in 2008 was 48 (an improvement from his score of 40 in the previous year).

Biggert's was 84.

Manzullo's was 92. Roskam's was 96.

http://www.acuratings.org/2008all.htm#IL

[John Curry]

I am surprised by the lack of acuity on the part of many commenters, both here and elsewhere.

McKenna did not state that he would not run. He stated that he would not run if Kirk did not run.

Mark Kirk has not stated that he is definitely running. Something must be entering into his calculus which presents us with the situation in which he remains a non-candidate. In the past, when we expected an announcement from him, we have thought it was finances, then we thought it was Lisa M as the Dem candidate. What is it now?

I have heard one consultant already predict that Kirk will ultimately decide not to run for statewide office. If so, then McKenna will run, based upon his current expressed position. McKenna has positioned himself well right now, by reaching out to national leaders, some of whom apparently will support him, and by declaring that he won't run if Kirk runs -- a win, win scenario created by McKenna. McKenna brings two things to the race Kirk does: statewide campaign experience and exposure and the ability to self-fund. They should not be underestimated.

[John Curry]

meant to srite "two things....Kirk doesn't"

[Terry]

I don't care what Chris or Felix has to say I will not ever vote for Mark Kirk. Just because someone has a blue R in front of there name doesn't mean i will blindly vote for someone like a sheep, my vote has to be earned.

[Sam Pierce]

Speaking as the idiot (I appreciate the screen name "Sam Pierce is an idiot") I hope we can convince both Kirk and McKenna the other is running. This way we might be spared the lectures flowing from those who would have compromise be the starting point.

[Dave]

I don't buy that at all

First, I still think Kirk is underdog in general because even when Obama continues to sink its going to be felt last here in Illinois because he is our hometown boy

Second, the 2 Dems likely to get in ( 1 already in) are not light weights and will be have full Democrat part organization at its wings and we all know how that includes a few hundred dead voters here and there

[Dave]

McKenna has no base. Isn't he really a Chicago guy?

[Dave]

Hope you earn yourself the current DC representation u have because people are like you deserve what we have

[Dave]

We also need to finally find top tier challenger to Bean

If 2010 is as I suspect it may be 1994 all over again and she could fall

[Felix]

If McKenna's experience and money are his advantages, why didn't they enable him to finish higher than 4th in 2004 ?
You might reply that that was before McKenna gained that experience as Chairman. OK, what does he have to show for the last two election cycles ? Even consdering they were bad years for the GOP everywhere, not much.
Where are the voter registration programs ? Where are the outreach programs ? Why isn't he doing a better job with candidate recruitment ?

[Felix]

Terry, you're the kind of guy who needs to meet some people in Florida who voted for Ralph Nader and the Green Party out of a conviction that there was no difference between Al Gore and the Dems and George Bush and the Republicans.
The Democrats have 60 seats in the US Senate. We can't count always on peeling away Dem Senator votes to stop cloture.
Mark Kirk will be a reliable anti-cloture vote when necessary. I even believe we would have had his vote to stop cap and trade if it had been absolutely necessary. It wasn't because, repeat after me, IT WILL DIE IN THE SENATE AND EVERYONE IN DC KNEW IT.
So why get all worked up over what is now a purely symbolic issue ?

[BillyBoy]

>> It wasn't because, repeat after me, IT WILL DIE IN THE SENATE AND EVERYONE IN DC KNEW IT. <<

Nice to know you can foresee the future. Kinda like how we were all told Bush signing McCain-Feingold won't matter because "it will be overturned by the Supreme Court and everyone knows it". You can lecture us all that Kirk's vote "didn't matter" IF the Senate votes it down. Until then, I wouldn't count my chickens before they hatch. And personally I believe that anyone who is "sure" it will die in the Senate is a fool, since the RATs have a filibuster proof majority now and it's highly unlikely the Dem Senators will oppose a President in their own party during his first year in office. You would not only need EVERY Republican to oppose cap-and-trade (including the Kirk clones in Maine), but AT LEAST 11 Dem Senators for the bill to be defeated. Good luck.

>> Terry, you're the kind of guy who needs to meet some people in Florida who voted for Ralph Nader and the Green Party out of a conviction that there was no difference between Al Gore and the Dems and George Bush and the Republicans. <<

Apples and oranges. Bush and Gore really were miles apart on major issues like abortion, gun-control, traditional marriage, energy independence, defense, educational choice, etc. The fact some Michael Moore types were so completely divorced from reality that they claimed Mr. Earth-in-the-balence was "just like Bush" is not my problem. The leftist nut jobs later recanted all that anyway.

The same can't be said for Kirk and any of his RAT opponents at all. Kirk completely agrees with the far-left's views on abortion, guns, minimum wage, cap-and-trade, immigration, envirowackoism, Bush bashing, etc., etc. As proof, watch Kirk "debate" any of his Democrat opponents like Lauren Beth Gash. They can't find an issue to disagree on. Kirk is a me-too Republican, and often to the LEFT of many actual moderate lipinski-type Dems. In order for the sitution to be compareable to Bush, the Dems would have to have nominated Zell Miller as his "opponent" in 2004. No Democrat was nutty enough to do that, but the GOP wants to nominate the likes of Kirk on our side.

Mark Kirk will be another Jim Jeffords or Linc Chafee if elected (I won't say another Arlen Specter, because Kirk is further left than even him. At least Specter PRETENDED to be a Republican during the primary). If you want Obama's socialist agenda in the Senate to get a "bipartisan" endorsement, Kirk is your man.

[Terry]

It's more then just cap and trade.
I will not vote for someone that supports abortion. It's his whole voting record is why I can't support him. I could list all the votes that are why, but that would be a long list.

I'm not a Republican I'm a Conservative.
The only time members of your ilk even want Conservatives around is on election day.
It's people like you who are the ones that attacked Sarah Palin and worked hard to trash her. Keep trying to push Conservatives out and see what havens to the GOP.

I don't live in 10th congressional district of Illinois so there's nothing I can do about his congressional seat.

[Terry]

Lets not forget Mark Kirk is a friend of NARAL.

[Zac M.]

Like I said in my first post, its all about numbers. Take a look at these numbers, and tell me how the Republicans can improve in 2010.

It is all about getting to 2.5 million votes. It is what it takes to win in this state in an election off year.

Assuming the nominee is Alexi Giannoulias, he already has 1,838,094 people who voted for him in the last election. Lets say 20% change their minds, thats still about 1.5 million who would be willing to vote for him again. However, if he taps into the same base that brought the votes to Dick Durbin, he could get a serious amount of extra votes.

Steve Sauerberg had 1.48 million votes in his campaign for senate. Assuming Kirk has to build on this, he needs an additional million votes to reach the magic number of 2.5 million votes in order to win the senate seat, since there are roughly 5 million voters who vote in off year elections.

Here is another fact, the last republican senate candidate lost roughly 500,000 votes to Barack Obama.

Barack Obama had 3,419,348 votes, while John McCain had 2,031,179 votes.

500,000 republicans went missing when it came to voting for the last senate candidate. Thats right, 500,000 voters crossed over to vote for McCain, but wouldn't vote for the Republican Senate Candidate?

How do we explain why 500,000 went missing? Anyone? My thought is that we first need to get these voters back on board, to get the Republican number back up to 2,000,000. Then it is all about going back for another 500,000 votes to reach 2.5 million votes for all Republican Candidates.

I am not sure of the solution, but its new and crossover voters, or getting people back out to the polls who used to be republicans. We need to keep asking ourselves, how do we get back 1 million votes or to the winning number for this state? We need to ask ourselves this at every moment we can, and be asking as many people of the way to do this.

My personal slogan and thought process is that Reverse the democratic tide and the letters and GOP, and what do you get? The party of growth, to bring jobs back to this state, tax dollars from our paychecks and assets back, and reverse the tide of corruption that has so dogged our state for the longest time.

The Republican Tide could even be our theme and group, since we will wash our state free of corruption and broken promises.

Tax Less
Invest in Growth
Defend our Values and our childrens's future
Every voice and vote counts.

Other things we need to consider are the last election results.

We can not forget that Stu Umholtz lost almost half the Republican votes in 2006 when he ran for Attorney General that Judy Baar Topinka had when she was running for governor. Topinka had roughly 38% of the state vote, while he had 25% of the vote. Dan Rutherford had roughly 33% of the vote. 4 to 13 percent of people voting makes an election go one way or another. These are also votes we need to get back on the Republican ticket.

Can anyone name the only Republican to top Topinka's votes at the top of the ticket? It is Christine Radogno, with roughly 41% of the vote, a full 2 percentage points higher than Topinka had. She was the only one who didn't lose any votes off the top of the ticket, and actually slightly improved her vote tally. Still, no one hit over 45% of the vote, so we still need 10% of the IL votes to come back to the Republican Party.

So, we need a ticket that can stay consistent with votes, so I say Republicans need a unity ticket to make sure that many votes are not lost when it comes to electing different statewide offices. Conservatives and moderates can unite and take it back.

Thoughts?

[Conservative Veteran]

Andy, your primary opponent will be Eric Wallace, and he will win.

The republican nominee needs to be a conservative. In 2008, Dr. Sauerberg was moderate, and he got 29%. In 2006, then-Treasurer Topinka was moderate, and she got 38%. These facts prove that we need to avoid nominating moderates, statewide.

[Dave]

Just curious how much money has Dr Wallace raised so far?

I am willing to bet not more then 50,000

[Sam Pierce]

Just curious who Kirk's donors are.

[BillyBoy]

>>>>>
500,000 republicans went missing when it came to voting for the last senate candidate. Thats right,
500,000 voters crossed over to vote for McCain, but wouldn't vote for the Republican Senate
Candidate?
How do we explain why 500,000 went missing? Anyone? My thought is that we first need to get these
voters back on board, to get the Republican number back up to 2,000,000.
<<<<<

I'm one of the 500,000 Illinoisans who voted for McCain at the top of the ticket, but did NOT vote for
Sauerberg, so I'll be happy to give my input on why.

Both McCain and Sauerberg were endorsed by the party elites in the primary and were not
liked/trusted by many rank and file conservative grassroot voters. HOWEVER -

McCain knew this and had the chance to choose someone like Lieberman as his running mate after the
primary, but instead McCain choose Palin and UNITED the conservative base around him. McCain also
made sure to get the "also-rans" on his side, and campaigned with Giuliani, Romney, Huckabee, and
Thompson.

Sauerberg had a chance to get the base to rally him around after the primary. He offered nothing but
"Dick Durbin is bad". Instead of uniting Republicans, after the primary, he choose a radical gay marriage
activist "Republican" to be the mouthpiece of his campaign, and never gave a reason why. He could
care less about the 45% of Republicans who voted against him the primary, and never once reached
out to meet with the two Republicans who also sought the Senate nomination, instead acting like he
was the only Republican who ran and we had to vote for him because of the “R” next to his name.

So the bottom line is I don't demand a "purist" perfect conservative candidate, in I'm even willing to
vote for a maverick McCain type as long as they reach out to the conservative base and try to work
with us -- and as long as they stick to the issues and attack the Dem's socialist agenda when it's way
outside the American mainstream.

Given that criteria, if Cap-n-traitor Mark Kirk is the "Republican" nominee, the GOP can forget about
my vote.

[Dave]

I am one

[Dennis C. Ryan]

As conservative Republicans, it's our job to make sure McKenna is OUT anyway...out of ANY leadership post in the ILGOP.

[david hale]

Kirk is an underdog because no conservative will vote for him, and I can tell you now the state Tea Party Movement will turn their backs on him. The Republican Machine and their allies in the media will put out enough propaganda to get us into Mark Kirk mood. But don't be mistaken. Kirk will loose. We are not in the mood for Mark Kirk.

David Hale
Director, RockfordTeaParty

[Matt Nelson]

Maybe John Curry needs to learn how to run an effective ward organization before posting.