Illinois Primary Rundown

Yesterday brought primaries in Illinois for two big prizes, the governorship vacated by the impeachment of Rod Blagojevich, and the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama. The Chicago Tribune has a good rundown on the results (more coverage here, here, here, and here) . Of all the candidates moving on, the one likely to get the most coverage is GOP Senate nominee Mark Kirk. The moderate north shore Republican currently represents the 10th District in the state's House delegation. A pro-choice fiscal conservative, Kirk has managed to hold his seat despite decent challengers, Democratic gains nationally, the Obama wave, and his state's increasingly blue hue. Despite having to tack a bit to the right during the primary, he's clearly the best nominee the GOP could put forward in hopes of capturing the seat. On the Democratic side, Alexi Giannoulias, the 31 year old State Treasurer, won the nod in a closer race. Moving to the fall, this race should be among the most competitive in the nation, and probably among the most expensive as well.

Updates to come.

**Update: This is not the type of news you want your newly nominated Lieutenant Governor to be generating. Makes Thomas Eagleton look quaint.

Does Anyone Want to Be the Next Senator From Illinois???

There's been a rash of Hamlet-like indecision in Illinois. For next year's Senate race, a number of candidates have been mulling entering what will no doubt be an expensive, highly watched, and potentially highly competitive campaign.

Last week came word, not surprisingly, that the appointed incumbent (and Blagojevic stained) Democrat Roland Burris would not seek to retain the seat. While claiming that the cost of mounting a race would be too prohibitive, his demurral certainly also has to do with the fact that he has virtually no support among Democratic higher ups in the state, including senior Senator Richard Durbin.

Also last week came the announcement that the Democrats' top hope for the seat, Attorney General Lisa Madigan, was also saying no. While Madigan was being courted by the White House to enter the race, she was also mulling a run for Governor. In the end, she decided to seek re-election as AG. While the Senate race seemed hers to lose, perhaps fear of a Republican rebound has led her to keep her powder dry for the time being. Only 42 years old, she has many campaigns in her future.

Another potential Dem is Christopher Kennedy, son of RFK, and head of the longtime Kennedy holding, Chicago Merchandise Mart. He's also reportedly on the fence.

Fourth on our roster of potential Senators is 5th term Republican House member Mark Kirk. Over the last few days Kirk has gone back and forth, sending out signals that he was out as well as in. Key to his deliberations, apparently, is a desire to avoid a costly and divisive primary. As of today, thanks to Illinois GOP head Andy McKenna's decision not to mount his own campaign, Kirk is in.

Kirk is perhaps the most interesting of these candidates. For the GOP to make a Senate pick-up in Illinois, a moderate would seem to be a requirement. Kirk certainly fits this bill. He represents the upscale 10th district, comprising the north and northwest Chicago suburbs. In last year's presidential race, Barack Obama received 61% of the vote in the 10th. In 2004, John Kerry won the district with 52%. Despite the recent Democratic wave, Kirk managed to hold his seat with 53%. The newly published Politics in America 2010 describes the district thusly:

Suburban white-collar workers and the more working-class residents of Waukegan combine to make the 10th fiscally conservative but socially liberal, especially on abortion rights and gun control. Its proximity to Lake Michigan makes environmental issues important here. While area residents have sent a Republican to the U.S. House for decades, the area generally supports Democratic presidential candidates...

Kirk is among the most left-leaning Republicans in the GOP caucus. He's managed to parlay his moderate positions into a reliable base of support back home, allowing him to withstand the strong Democratic winds of the past few cycles. He would seem to possess the necessary ability to siphon off the votes of Democratic leaning independents in the Chicago suburbs. While these voters have been moving increasingly leftward in recent years, Kirk may be able to bring them back (perhaps only temorarily) with a message of fiscal responsibility. Should the benefits of the recently passed stimulus package remain elusive, coupled with high unemployment, Kirk may have a solid economic platform on which to mount his campaign.

There is one announced Democrat in the race, State Treasurer Alex Giannoulias. Another potential Dem entrant is 9th District House member Jan Schakowsky, whose district border's Kirk's, and who would be the most liberal candidate in the race. She has strong progressive bona fides, is part of the House Democratic leadership, and would bring fundraising potential to the campaign.

Keep an eye on Illinois as things become more straightened out over the coming weeks.

Goldwater Girls Gone Bad: Can the ACU's Cong. Honor Roll Really Make Them Right in Their Heart Again?

The American Conservative Union issued its 2008 congressional scorecard today. Both of ElectionDissection.com’s editors showed up at the Nat’l Press Club, and grabbed hard copies of the ratings. It’s a good thing we stopped by; the ratings are yet to be available online, though the site has a deep archive dating back to 1971 that looks like it a offers a fascinating peek at the changes that have occurred in Congress since then, and how the conservative movement looks at the institution and its Members.

One of the “NPC Newsmaker” events the Club holds regularly, the press conference was sparsely attended, and among those who couldn’t fill up the smaller Murrow Room, there seemed to be as many or more conservative movement/activist types on hand as journalists. No surprise, considering the “Newsmaker” was ACU president David Keene, a movement veteran, and the NPC advertised that he would “discuss the state of conservative activism following the 2008 elections” and hype CPAC, this weekend’s ACU-sponsored young Republican tent revival.

The yawn that greeting this year’s ratings – nobody from Roll Call, The Hill, Politico, CQ, NattyJo, etc. were recognizable in the seats – might be attributable to the trend, distinct since the ’94 Republican takeover, that’s seen more ideological cohesiveness among Members in both parties in both chambers.

Keene conceded that “the real change in America is, of course, demographic,” in parrying what the conservative activist questioner thought was a softball he lobbed at him. No, it wasn’t all that anti-immigrant haranguing that scared Hispanics away from the Republican brand, even rejecting John McCain and his solid open borders credentials in bigger numbers than G.W.’s slide from 2000 t0 2004. It was just message; a failure to communicate and appeal to the natural social conservatism of the bulk of Hispanic voters.

Keene’s prescription: just reiterate more emphatically – or, in his view, return to, after the Bush Administration’s various apostasies – a core Republican message that is disseminated more efficiently and effectively by harnessing new media. (À la Anuzis: Twitter to the kids more!) And the ACU’s, and CPAC’s, role, of course, is to inspire the conservative base to make sure Republicans in Congress adhere to that philosophy.

So, ElectionDissection.com started breaking down how many of those Members the ACU deemed sufficiently devoted to Reagan’s legacy hailed from its Southern and Great Plains regional rumps, but gave up halfway. Certainly more of the “wets” hailed from the Northeast. Maine’s stimulus-saving Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins clock in with a 12 and 20, respectively, and fmr. Conn. Rep. Chris Shays, New England’s last Wooly Mammoth (read: House Republican) could only muster a 32. Similarly anomalous is fmr. Rep. Robin Hayes of No. Carolina, who shifted to the left on economics in an effort to hang on in his CD of shuttered textile plants after an unexpected nail biter in ’06 and scores a mere 48.

But with three-quarters of the 110^th Congress’ House Republican Conference scoring 80% or higher in agreement with the ACU position on the roll call votes they rate, the “honor roll” is basically reflective of the Conference at-large. (Of course, it’s tempting to be selective with which votes are selected, to reward friendly Members and not alienate influential committee chairs, etc. Democrats made so many gains in 2006 and 2008 that they now boast a caucus more diverse than any Congress since before ’94, which might make the Americans for Democratic Actions’ – the ACU's liberal inverse – ratings more telling after the 111^th first session. Nevertheless, the ADA’s 2008 ratings are about as unilluminating as the ACU’s.)

So, let’s take Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), whom Keene dubbed the “smartest guy” in the House GOP Conference; a stalwart exponent of the message he’s advocating. Ryan’s CD flipped in ’08, when Obama captured 51% even as Ryan was reelected with nearly two-thirds of the same electorate. (Bush bested Kerry 53%-46% here four years before.) So, Ryan held on, a rare case vindicating Keene’s strategy.

One state to the south offers a starker contrast. Republicans are salivating over a potential special election for embattled Sen. Roland Burris’ Illinois Senate seat, once held by Obama himself. Two Republican U.S. Reps. from neighboring suburban Chicago districts are staring down each other for the GOP nod: reliable Republican Peter Roskam (ACU ’08 rating: 96) and perennial target of conservative ire Mark Kirk (ACU ’08 rating: 48). Considering that GOP primary electorates remain very conservative, even in Blue States, Roskam would be favored at first blush.

While the main counties in both Members’ CDs – Lake Co. in Kirk’s; DuPage Co. in Roskam’s – saw a dramatic shift to Obama, like affluent, educated suburban locales nationwide, these counties are remarkable even given that the trend here may be over-pronounced due to Obama’s Favorite Son status. These counties have been so reliably Republican that even “homegirl” Hillary Rodham Clinton was a Goldwater Girl here back in ’64.  But HRC followed a trajectory now familiar among women of her generation who hail from the Collar Counties: product of a conservative, upwardly-mobile Republican household goes off to an elite institution of higher learning (say, Wellesley) and graduates with an even higher earning potential and the de rerigueur decidedly liberal politics that ascending in those circles demands.  To smarting conservative Republicans: Goldwater Girls Gone Bad.

While Roskam increased his reelect margin from ‘06, and Kirk held steady, could Roskam’s more rigid conservatism win in Lake Co., now much more Democratic? It’s more plausible that Kirk’s more malleable positions could take DuPage as well as Lake and dig into Democratic margins in Red County Lincolnland.  Can Roskam's unwavering conservatism, more than Kirk's more moderate stands, really bring those Goldwater Girls Gone Bad back into the fold?

If Illinois’ political melodrama plays itself out, we may get a test of Keene’s strategy soon.

***

A parting thought: it should be noted that the most salient issues that divide moderate and conservative, suburban and rural Republicans remain those explosive cultural issues. Not a single so-called “social issue” roll call vote merits a rating by the ACU in ’08, save for a vote on benefits to “illegal” immigrants.

The Twin Cities' Suburbs and Obama's (Lack of) Coattails

To get a sense of why they're still counting votes in the Minnesota Senate race, the above maps might be instructive. Obviously, Obama's support was more widespread than Al Franken's. Initially, I thought the reason Franken wasn't able to capitalize on Obama's big win was due to underperformance in Ramsey County (St. Paul). Being Norm Coleman's home--he was Mayor of St. Paul prior to running for the Senate--this wouldn't be surprising.

When one compares the candidates' performance in both Ramsey and neighboring Hennepin County, however, another explanation seems more plausible. In looking at the countywide vote, Franken actually did better in Ramsey than Hennepin. The third party candidate in the race, Dean Barkley, performed about equally well in each county, receiving 15.5% in Ramsey and 14.7% in Hennepin. Franken, while winning both counties quite handily received 51.1%in Ramsey compared to 49.3% in Hennepin. Coleman thus took 33.3% in Ramsey and 35.7% in Hennepin.

In comparing the maps one sees a noticeable strength for Coleman in the western and southern Minneapolis suburbs, still part of Hennepin County. Whereas Obama was able to win in a number of these outer precincts, Franken fell short.

This split ticket voting was evident not only in the Senate race. Going into November 4th, Democrats were hoping to pick up the open House seat being vacated by moderate Republican incumbent Jim Ramstad in the 3rd District. On election day, however, Republicans were able to hold the seat with the election of state legislator Erik Paulsen. Whereas Obama won the 3rd district with 53% of the vote, Paulsen scored an 8 point victory over Democratic nominee Ashwin Madia.

This dynamic was not confined to the Twin Cities. In a number of suburban areas, sizable Obama wins did not necessarily translate into Democratic congressional pickups. For example, in a similar type of race, moderate Republican Rep. Mark Kirk was able to hold onto his suburban Chicago seat despite the fact that it went for Obama.

**Maps courtesy of Minnesota Secretary of State