So here is the issue that makes the whole debacle interesting–who plays what hand?
If you are social conservative how do you play the hand so that you keep a social conservative on the ticket?
Is supporting Jack! better for you than getting him replaced by a RINO (Republican in Name Only)? If they do better than expected doesn’t that weaken you? If such a creature makes it you need them to bomb.
Or can you find someone socially conservative to take the spot and get the Central Committee to go along? Who fits that bill? Rauschenberger? But he won’t say he’d take it as long as Jack! is in, and he doesn’t want to be a two time loser. Who else is there that can get through the Central Committee and please social conservative? Maybe Oberweis? Pretty please with sugar on top?
If you are a moderate you want to find a consensus candidate who is going to be good enough to get people out on election day. Who can do that? The argument amongst many is that Edgar, Topinka or Big Jim might be able to. But a few problems–conservatives dislike the first two–actually hate Topinka. Big Jim has been out of the game and is too liberal for social conservatives. All three would insist on funding from the NRSC and the national Republicans already wrote this off. Worse, you might not have a significant chunk of the conservative base even bother to vote if any of those three are at the top.
On top of that Topinka doesn’t really want it–shes gearing up for Flowbeejovich and O’Malley in ’06. Edgar really seems to be happy in semi-retirement and Big Jim could result in a lot of nastiness from other Republicans. Corrinne Wood would be run up a flagpole by the social conservatives and that is about it that is left of moderates–other than some legislators not dumb enough to fight this fight.
Frankly, I don’t think anyone is sure of what the hell to do yet. They’ll let it shake out for several days as Jack! wears down and see if they can get the upperhand in replacing him. And if he proves to be obstinate, he might just sit there with a civil war going on around him, but not directly about him.
I think Big Jim is a real option, if little Jim isn’t game perhaps your only option at this point besides just riding the Ryan train.
I hear George Ryan’s got nothing better to do the next few months. Seriously though, they’re best option is not even being considered. The incumbent. Duh. Who’s got the poll numbers of match-ups if Jack Ryan quits? I wanna see where an Obama – Fitzgerald – Kohn – Franzen poll ends up.
I’ll add that Ryan shouldn’t be able to quit unless he becomes ineligible for office somehow. Death, jail, etc. They shouldn’t be allowed to take away individual’s primary votes and coronate a different candidate just because the one they got is kinky.
If they don’t like who won their primary, they should have to do what Adlai Stevenson did in 1986. But oops, it’s too late to collect signatures now, even though other state’s deadlines are in August after a year to collect them. I thought they were screwing around with favorist election laws enough with the Bush issue, but changing candidates because of some dirt? Who cares how the voters vote and democratic election principles, right?