In the Right

Not to be outdone, Rep. Mark Kirk of Highland Park made a decision and began calling allies and operatives to tell them he was jumping for the GOP nomination for the Senate.

Illinois politics has provided some indelible imagery already this year -- from the arrest of former Governor "Hot" Rod Blagojevich one day after challenging opponents to tape his conversations, to the appointment of Sen. Roland Burris to fill the vacancy left by President Barack Obama, to the impeachment of Blagojevich, to the appearance of Mrs. Blagojevich on "I'm a Celebrity -- Get Me Out of Here," to the travails of Cook County Board President Todd Stroger.

Now we can add what will most assuredly be two more barn-burner elections -- because with Madigan, the 800-pound gorilla of Illinois statewide politics, out of the running, both the gubernatorial and U.S. Senate elections next year could be extremely competitive, giving Republicans a serious shot at both.

But, as I wrote three weeks ago, Republicans will only be able to capitalize on the opportunities given them by Democrats if they can figure out who should be the proper candidates to carry the party banner.

Kirk's move fills one of the two slots.

His decision to move now will end the nascent candidacy of current Illinois GOP chairman Andy McKenna, who -- apparently believing that Kirk would not step up to make the race for Senate -- began talking to Washington Republicans six weeks ago about making a bid for the Senate himself.

Admittedly, this would have been a novel approach to taking responsibility for his failure to recruit a suitable candidate, and for that, we should salute him -- especially since McKenna's first attempt at winning a Republican nomination for a U.S. Senate seat in Illinois, in 2004, didn't work out so well for him. (He came in fourth in a field of eight, after having raised $2 million and spent $4.5 million.)

(It also would have let McKenna evade responsibility for the disaster that is the Illinois Republican Party today -- last Friday, for instance, IllinoisReview.com reported that the entire IL GOP staff had been given its walking papers, effective July 31.)

Kirk is a serious contender because the media says he is, and because he has $1.1 million in his campaign account.

He may have made the decision to run for the Senate nomination because he figured it might be easier for him to contest a statewide nomination contest than it would have been for him to win a primary challenge in his own district -- his vote for cap-and-trade 12 days ago was a move that left many perplexed, and more than a few angry.

Inside the boundaries of his gerrymandered district, where local Republicans have long known of his off-the-reservation act, and have become increasingly exasperated by it, Kirk could have found it difficult to win a contested GOP primary; running statewide, he faces much less risk of an anti-cap-and-trade backlash, because he will have enough money to put smiley-face direct mail and radio where he needs to, while his challengers won't.

Though Kirk will not have a coronation -- there are already two other, though little-known, announced candidates for the nomination, Eric Wallace and Robert Zadek -- it remains to be seen whether a conservative with access to funding will emerge to challenge him seriously for the nomination.

Now, if Illinois Republicans can just figure out what to do about their nomination for governor.

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