Comments for The Jockeying For Obama's Old Senate Seat

The Jockeying For Obama's Old Senate Seat

2009-07-10T20:30:54Z

The jockeying to replace Roland Burris as the next United States Senator from Illinois continues. Earlier this week, Democrats were bummed to hear that the state's attorney general, Lisa Madigan, was going to decline to run for the seat being held by Burris and that used to be held by a fellow named Barack Obama. Republicans were doubly encouraged to hear that Mark Kirk, a relatively moderate and popular Republican congressman from the state, was likely to get in the race. Now, Chris Cillizza at The Washington Post is reporting that Kirk is not going to get in the race after all. Why does this matter? Because the race for a seat vacated by a president is important. ]]>
The seat will hold special interest for the White House because the likely Democratic candidate is state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, a basketball buddy of Obama's. With Kirk, dropping out the Democratic chances of holding on to the seat just got better. But the economy is still shaky. Next November is a long way away and the state is still in the throes of dealing the ouster of Gov. Rod Blagojevich and the controversial appointment of Roland Burris. It's not hard to see the state sending a Republican to Washington and that would be a deep embarrassment for the president, his top political advisor David Axelrod, his chief of staff and former Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel and everyone else in the West Wing who comes from the Land of Lincoln.

Comment from DCCyclone on 2009-07-10

2009-07-11T02:15:38Z

Matt, the most important line in your post is "Next November is a long way away," and what's odd is the text you typed immediately following those words doesn't comport with the opening words of that sentence.

Voters have short attention spans. They have longer attention spans on bigger issues or on small ones that seem to reinforce the same narratives over time. The Blago scandal is unique to Blago and secondarily Burris, and Burris' early decision not to run ends the scandal's impact on the Senate race. There's no larger narrative of "Illinois Democrats are corrupt" that sticks to the party as a whole, akin to the "Culture of Corruption" narrative that stuck to Congressional Republicans in 2006. So the Blago scandal will be far removed from voters' minds by this time next year, at least as a voting issue. The economy is a bigger problem at first blush, but Derek Thompson of this site smartly echoed my own sentiments that time is on Democrats' side on this issue, and that the timing of this recession couldn't have been worse for the GOP. It takes off just in time to spank Republicans in November 2008, it hits bottom in 2009, and it turns around (early enough) in 2010 in time to clot any potential Democratic bleeding.

I think if you realistically look around the corner, it's clear Obama's old Senate seat is a very steep uphill climb for Mark Kirk assuming he does run (as CQ tonight still insists he's doing notwithstanding Cilizza's report), and Alexi Giannoulias is a clear frontrunner to win the next next November (given he's a runaway frontrunner for the primary with Chris Kennedy frankly an unknown with nothing to sell beyond the Kennedy name that's never proven an electoral asset outside the Northeast).

Comment from colby on 2009-07-13

2009-07-13T17:05:38Z

"There's no larger narrative of "Illinois Democrats are corrupt" that sticks to the party as a whole, akin to the "Culture of Corruption" narrative that stuck to Congressional Republicans in 2006."

Errr...sure there is. IL voters just don't really care (it helps that IL Republicans are just as corrupt and twice as useless, I guess). Actually, this probably fits into your broader point- corruption is just part of the political landscape in IL, so something conforming to that won't get much attention (Blago and Burris get attention for being corrupt, combative, AND ineffective). Something that doesn't- a clean pol, like Obama- gets attention.

Stll, there's enough anger at Blago and Burris that, if the economy is still down, and Kirk is the candidate (now he's back in, or nearly so, I hear), he can win it. He's probably the only one who can, and it will be a tough race for him, but it's very possible.