Whose Fault?

This is three weeks old, but you get what you pay for.

Jeb Golinkin, on Frum­Fo­rum, posted on the sub­ject of the race for Obama’s for­mer Sen­ate seat in Illi­nois. He is mak­ing the case for why the Repub­li­can Kirk might well beat the Demo­c­rat Giannoulias.

Gian­nou­lias has the prob­lem of

his ties to cor­rupt Illi­nois pol­i­tics as usual (Blago, Tony Rezko, the fact that his biggest fundraiser was recently arrested….etc.)…It also helps that Gian­nou­lias can’t stop find­ing his way into the news for all the wrong rea­sons. His fam­ily bank is on the brink of col­lapse and has loaned a clean $20 mil­lion to con­victed felons.

Kirk has advantages:

Kirk is an estab­lished mod­er­ate. He voted for cap and trade, a vote which prob­a­bly hor­ri­fies many read­ers but might actu­ally play in his favor by demon­strat­ing that he is will­ing to go out on a limb, buck his party, and sup­port a pres­i­dent who still remains pop­u­lar in Illi­nois. Kirk also has impec­ca­ble national secu­rity cre­den­tials (for years, he has been lead­ing the push in Con­gress for sanc­tions on Iran). Fur­ther­more, his eco­nomic posi­tions will appeal to vot­ers eager to get their jobs back and see the econ­omy mov­ing again.

And then there is:

the fact that Rod Blago­je­vich, with whom Gian­nou­lias has worked, is going to be on the front page of every Illi­nois paper as his trial unfolds.

So, Kirk is a mod­er­ate with a lib­eral vote on the record sup­port­ing Obama and Gian­nou­lias is tarred with corruption.

Cou­ple that analy­sis with the fact that the President’s party always loses seats in the mid-​term election.

But you can bet your boots that if Kirk wins, there will be plenty of spin on the right that this race is just another exam­ple of the fail­ure of Obama and the electorate’s rejec­tion of him.

Tagged as: 2010