Reassessing….
Capitol Fax is up:
Embattled US Senate candidate Jack Ryan has canceled his fundraising trip to Washington, DC and is reportedly reassessing his candidacy.
Ryan had two scheduled DC fundraisers today, one of which had already been “postponed.” The other was sponsored by some Senate bigwigs.
The DC excursion would have directly exposed the candidate to the national media.
A source close to the Ryan campaign said the candidate has, “other pressing things to do here. He feels it’s more important to be here right now, dealing with this firestorm, than to be in DC.”
Check out the end–AP reports Spokesperson is denying.
Miller will be updating Capitol Fax today so keep an eye on it. I’ll link as soon as anything new comes up as well.
Previously….
Via e-mail and a call
and on the Sun-Times…..
WASHINGTON?-Beleaguered Senate Republican candidate Jack Ryan is considering quitting the race in the uproar touched off by the release of his divorce records, a Republican source told the Chicago Sun- Times on Thursday.
“He?s reassessing,” the source said. Ryan canceled a trip to Washington today where he had planned to appear with Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (R-Ill.) and attend a fund raiser headlined by Sen. George Allen (R-Va.), the chairman of the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee.
I’m hearing others have sources saying the same thing.
Capitol Fax will probably update soon.
Looking at the rest of the story
The source said that Ryan was particularly concerned that the “tabloids are going after” Jeri Lynn Ryan, his former wife who alleged that Ryan brought her to sex clubs when they were married. Jeri Ryan is a television actress known for her roles on “Star Trek” and “Boston Public.”
Uh, yeah, it shouldn’t have taken a genius to see this coming.
June 24th, 2004 at
Do you have any guess who will replace Ryan?
June 24th, 2004 at
Good question. My best guess is that since the GOP has pretty much given up on this race and don’t want to waste a lot of money on it that could be spent elsewhere, they’ll put up some second stringer who wants a race to raise his profile for future runs and let him lose to Obama. The state GOP doesn’t seem to care about losing the seat, they just don’t want a radioactive effect in November costing other GOP candidates in the state (Phil Crane for example).
None of the major names bandied about are likely to do it. Edgar already said no and his health probably prevents any future political runs for him. Thompson also said no, has a lucrative law practive he doesn’t want to give up and has some skeletons in his closet. And Topinka seems to be aiming for a gubernatorial run in 2006 (besides, the right wing in the state hates her guts). Maybe they’ll throw up Oberweis or another of the primary losers instead.
June 24th, 2004 at
Dear Lord,
If you must take Jack! Ryan from us, please bless us with Jim Oberweis as his replacement.
Your Faithful Servant,
So-Called Austin Mayor
June 24th, 2004 at
How about that guy from central Illinois who ran in the primary? I don’t recall his name but he was fairly good on the stump… Then again Oberweis means free Ice Cream!
June 24th, 2004 at
Wright is right of Atilla the Hun. Smart guy, good on the stump, conservative to the extreme. Probably doesn’t know what a sex club is though.
June 24th, 2004 at
Might as well make the right wing guys happy at this point. The other thought is someone named Jack so we can use the signs.
June 24th, 2004 at
I don’t think Jack’s going to pull out; he’s unbelievably stupid and insufferably arrogant. He honestly thinks he can get over this and the voters will see through it as a “distraction.” The emperor has no clothes, ya know?
June 24th, 2004 at
Crain’s is reporting that Edgar and Thompson have definitely said no, and that party leaders have approached Ronald Gidwitz who is willing to do it.
June 24th, 2004 at
Andy! Andy! Andy! Andy!
(McKinnon– how quickly we forget)
Who’s Ronald Gidwitz? Is 5 months long enough to tell me?
If MoveOn PAC thinks other candidates need support more than Obama, and so does dKos, my bet is that GOP nationals want to stay as far away from this state as possible and devote their apparently shrinking resources to the close races.
June 24th, 2004 at
A better question might be IF they can replace Jack Ryan. hehehehehehehe
June 24th, 2004 at
Yeah, this hands the Dems a giant tool to extract garbage–you want either the President or the Senate on the ballot…..we want this and this and this and….
Gidwitz? Self-funder neophyte and essentially no. 5 months isn’t long enough. He’ll probably be in Durkin territory, but Durkin was actually kind of smart. I don’t even know enough about Gidwitz to make fun of him.