Would the Tribune Rejoin the Reality Based Community Please
hat tip Rich
Kass is spreading Jack Roeser’s conspiracy theory that Bill Brady was a plant by the combine. Worse, he claims Burris was a plant.
Because, you know, Burris never ran before. Like in 1994 and 1998. People may have taken advantage of Burris’ candidacy, but he wanted to win.
Here’s another reason people enter crowded fields–ambition. I’m no fan of Bill Brady other than he was an upgrade to Gordon Ropp’s career crusade for a state soil. Brady is ambitious and he ran a hell of a lot stronger of a campaign than I thought he could. He ran for Congress in 2000 and has been looking to move up the political ladder for some time.
If anything, Brady offered Republicans a chance to actually elect a conservative to statewide office. Oberweis is the Democratic dream candidate. He’s not terribly bright, he makes really dumb decisions, he’s not charismatic, and he’s no where close to the median voter. The only worry about Oberweis was whether he’d actually do worse than Keyes in the percentage of vote.
If the Illinois GOP is going to try and rely on Jack Roeser and friends to bring them back to winning, that’s going to be a long, long wait. In the short term, the numbers for Republicans make winning nearly impossible given the national GOP’s shift to the right. Following that drift isn’t going to help.
November 14th, 2006 at
I agree with you about Brady and Oberweis. It was a tough call for me between Brady and Topinka.
But I really doubt that “llinois GOP is going to try and rely on Jack Roeser and friends to bring them back to winning.” I don’t see any reason to be concerned about that.
November 14th, 2006 at
I hope not GOP–but he has been successful at burning down candidacies. He’s obviously trying to tear down Brady now–a guy who I certainly don’t want winning anything, but a decent candidate.
He’s not likely to control the party, but he is capable of continuing to break the party apart. That should worry honest Democrats because it means the GOP is less effective and the last 4 years have taught us about the need for an effective opposition.