OBAMA FOR PRESIDENT? ILLINOIS REPUBLICANS ARE TO BLAME
By Robert Klein Engler (12/15/06)
CHICAGO (15 December '06)--If Senator Barack Obama becomes President of the U. S., then the nation has the Illinois Republican Party to blame for it.
Many voters who do not live in Illinois understand little about how Barack Obama became a U. S. Senator in the first place. Nor do they know of his record as a state senator or of his liberal voting record in the U. S. Senate over the last two years. Many just know Senator Obama, to quote John Podhoretz, as "an uncommonly opaque rock-star politician."
Besides being a creation of the media, Senator Obama is also the creation of failed Illinois Republican politics. The lesson Illinois Republicans seem to have a hard time learning is that sometimes in politics half a loaf is better than none.
Barack Obama won the election for Senator from Illinois by defeating the Republican candidate, Alan Keyes. How Alan Keyes became the Republican candidate is a story in itself.
Senator Obama's original Republican opponent was Jack Ryan, no relation to Illinois convicted Republican governor George Ryan. Nevertheless, the Republicans were under a shadow of corruption as the race began because of George Ryan's legal problems.
When a sex scandal developed around Jack Ryan before the general election, but after the primary, he was forced to withdraw by the party leadership. The reason for this withdrawal is still not fully known. The current explanation is that Ryan was not forthcoming about any questionable activity in his past.
According to CNN.com, "The ex-wife of Jack Ryan, the Republican candidate for the U. S. Senate in Illinois, alleged in court papers filed in 2000 that he took her to sex clubs and asked her to engage in sexual activity in front of other patrons."
It is important to remember, however, that this was done while she was still his wife. As far as we know, there was no extramarital affair involved here, as had happened in the White House earlier to a Democratic President.
Many in the Illinois Republican Party were willing to overlook this indiscretion on the part of Jack Ryan because he was a viable candidate, and could have defeated Barack Obama in the general election. Instead, the party hierarchy, who seemed more interested in some kind of ideological purity and also in keeping the party closed to new ideas, asked Alan Keyes to run in the place of Ryan.
Inviting Keyes to come into Illinois to take the place of Jack Ryan gave new meaning to the term "Carpet Bagger." What the Illinois Republican Party should have done was to put on the ballot the man from Illinois who got the second most votes in the primary. That was Jim Oberweis. Oberweis, however, had a strong position against illegal immigration which supposedly the White House did not like.
It was rumored that if Oberweis were to have been the candidate, then no money from Washington would come into Illinois for the election. So, Keyes was on the ballot, and then Keyes lost to Obama. The election wasn't even close. Illinois Republicans gave Obama this victory as a gift to the chagrin of many. What were they thinking?
The hard feelings that came out of this election loss did nothing to unify Illinois Republicans. So, when Judy Baar Topinka, Republican candidate for governor ran in November, she also lost to an incumbent Democrat.
Some Illinois Republicans act as if they really don't want to win elections. They prefer the no loaf of ideological purity to the half loaf of winning with a less than perfect candidate. They prefer to keep the party to themselves, instead of expanding the party with candidates who can win elections. If Barack Obama ever becomes President, or even Vice President, the nation and conservatives can blame it from the beginning on the Illinois Republican Party.
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