Remember, this was before the most recent poll.
1) Jack Ryan. Apparently being an empty suit is in this year. Don’t know about Kjellander’s scandal in the Tribune Editorial Board? Being that rich you should be able to buy a clue. Social conservatives love him and he is an attractive candidate. Trekkers still hate him.
2) Oberweis. Yes, he is exploiting his business for political gain and his political campaign for personal gain. It works. Making a lot of noise on immigrants and that gets him attention. Giving away free ice cream for life attracts a lot Democrats to his web site. Still has the social conservatives worried and they are consistently making low level attacks about his ties to G-Ryan and others not in social conservative favor.
3)McKenna–the combine candidate is trying to take back the party for big bidness and the social conservatives aren’t happy. Nevermind that he is a social conservative himself, but he wont’ criticize Kjellander. Still the combine wing hopes this is their guy.
4) Rauschenberger–not getting the money he needs and not capturing the audience. Strange in a way given he is a serious guy. Very serious. It appears to be two problems. First, he isn’t as good as some of the others at the game. Second, he isn’t really beholden to anyone so the natural constituency isn’t there. Don’t count him out though as he has lots of support from state lege members and they can deliver a lot of local votes in a split primary.
5) Borling–Pro-choice in a pro-life party and doesn’t seem to have a convincing rationale for why he should be Senator. As Bob Dole has said, if war records mattered, he would have beaten Clinton.
6) Kathuria–the only person dumber than a candidate who sues for bad press coverage is the campaign manager who doesn’t tackle him and put him in a straight-jacket until the urge subsides. Using the press as a foil is good tactics. Suing them for criticizing a public figure just gets you tossed into the blackhole of gadfly candidate. Nothing escapes a blackhole.