The Eye

Lee Roupas, the Republican chairman in Cook County, said that Kirk sounded like a Senate candidate in a conference call Thursday night with county GOP chairmen. "He more than strongly indicated that he was going to be entering the primary for the U.S. Senate race," Roupas said.

According to an Illinois GOP source sympathetic to Kirk, the congressman was hammered on the call for his vote last month for a climate change bill that most Republicans believe will result in unbearable costs for working and middle class families.

"It was a brutal call," the source said. "He kind of shot himself in the head not the foot" with the climate change vote.

But an Illinois Republican operative who spoke with some county chairmen about that call disagreed with that assessment. "They want to win, and I think that's the message that was said last night," the operative said. "My understanding is that it was even folks from southern Illinois who were saying that, and that's a very conservative part of the state."

Roupas said that the conference call included a "lively discussion" but he declined to give details, though he did say that Kirk addressed his vote on the climate change bill.

Kirk could still face opposition in the February 2010 primary from state Republican chairman Andy McKenna, though several Republican sources said they thought it unlikely that the two men would run against one another.

McKenna, who lost a Republican primary for the Senate in 2004, could also choose to run to succeed Kirk in Illinois' 10th District, a collection of suburbs north of Chicago that Kirk has represented since 2001.

The Democratic primary will include state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias and could also include businessman Chris Kennedy and Chicago Urban League president Cheryle Jackson.

Jonathan Allen contributed to this report. To see how the 2010 Senate races are shaping up, check out the CQ Politics' election map.