Rich Miller in his weekly column covers the Syverson in his role in bringing Keyes to Illinois. It’s very funny:
At times like these, it’s human nature to look for someone to blame. It’s tough to blame Keyes because, well, Keyes is Keyes. He was, after all, totally consistent when he moved from saying all homosexuals are “selfish hedonists” to saying that Mary Cheney is a “selfish hedonist.”
Anyone with an Internet connection and a half hour to spare could have predicted this would happen and Keyes would turn out to be a complete embarrassment to the Republican Party and the state of Illinois.
I prefer to blame state Sen. Dave Syverson (R-Rockford). Syverson is the treasurer of the Illinois Republican Party who actively recruited Keyes and then touted him to anyone who would listen.
I happen to like Dave Syverson. He is energetic and bright and his constituents are well-represented, but he really blew this one. He also wasn’t alone.
That’s funny stuff.
But on the front page of the Capitol Fax, he points out another issue–how low can Keyes go in terms of votes.
WORSE THAN ’86? (excerpt) [A] terrible fear is creeping through the [regular Republicans] these days that Keyes will do worse than Koehler this November [former Senator Alan Dixon beat Koehler like a Persian rug, winning 65 percent of the vote and all 102 counties in 1986]. The Cheney comment [by Alan Keyes–that Cheney’s lesbian daughter is a “selfish hedonist”] sent shivers down a lot of Republican spines because the more voters Keyes alienates, the more damage he could do to down-ballot candidates. And if he’ll do something like [make this comment about the VEEP’s daughter] are there any limits to his behavior?
Of course, 1986 didn’t kill the Republicans down ballot because the Democrats had the embarrassment of the 20th Century when 2 LaRouchies hijacked spots on the Democratic ticket thanks to an incompetent primary GOTV operations.
To give you a historical sense of bad defeats here is everyone who fell below 40 percent in US Senate races since 1920:
Year Party Name % of the vote/% of the two party vote
1920 D Waller 26.11/27.89
1924 D Sprague 34.99/35.37
1930 R McCormick 30.73/32.43
1972 D Pucinski 37.35/37.51
1974 R Burditt 37.22/37.46
1986 R Koehler 33.75/34.13
1990 R Martin 34.93/34.93
2002 R Durkin 38.02/38.66
I’m not sure Koehler’s numbers should be the concern–I’d be more worried about McCormick or Waller from 1920 and 1930 respectively. I’m pretty sure Keyes won’t break 30% at this point, but the beneficiary after about 65% of the vote may well be Jerry Kohn. Many Republicans may defect from the ticket, but not to Barack. The humorous watch may well be whether Obama can take on McKinley in 1920 and have the highest percent of support ever for a US Senate Candidate in Illinois
Total, McKinley got 67.48%
Of the two party vote he got 72.11%
From the looks of it, both numbers are reasonable given early polling and continuing eruptions from Keyes. And unfortunately for the Republicans, the Democrats don’t have any LaRouchies around–though Denny Hastert has been doing a decent imitation on news shows recently.
The other number to shoot for is the all time high number of votes for a US Senate Candidate in Illinois. The current highwater mark was 2,867,078 votes by Charles Percy in 1972 against Pucinski. The actual challenge for Obama is getting enough total people out to vote to break that number.
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