-By Warner Todd Huston
Earlier today the Chairman of the Illinois GOP conducted a conference call with the media and other interested folks concerning the Illinois GOP’s plans and thoughts on the coming election. Here are some of the highlights of what Pat Brady said…
“The visit today says more about Alexi’s weakness as a candidate than anything. Let’s take a little look at the history here. Alexi Giannoulias was the fourth choice of the Democrat Party… He was not the enthusiastic choice, by any means, of the Democrats here in the state…
“About these visits from the dignitaries of the Democratic Party, from the President three times, to President Clinton, to Joe Biden, to Michelle Obama, to the rest of the leadership of the Democrat Party, I think that what they are missing here is that these campaigns here in Illinois are primarily based on local issues. This is a state that has been under the iron fisted rule of the Chicago Democrat machine for the last eight years and you all on this call know the state of the state from Rod Blagojevich to the $13 billion budget deficit to the worst funded public pension system in the country.
“I think voters in Illinois and I think a lot of people believe voters in Illinois are concerned with how this state has been managed and aren’t really receptive to a backward looking, ‘blame it on George Bush’ type rally, which I think we are going to see today.… The bottom line is with Alexi: He’s proven to be a bad candidate and he’s on the wrong side of a lot of the issues with voters here in Illinois. Again, we always welcome the President here and we’re always glad to see him and from what I have seen in the poll numbers, every time he comes in, Mark Kirk seems to creep up a little bit amongst Independents and suburban voters, which is where this campaign is going to be won and lost…
“It’s going to be a big night for the Republicans on Tuesday. [In] our early voting in all the Congressional Districts we are even or ahead of the Democrats, which as you know, is a great sign for us because we, in 2008, were down three to one at this point – early voting in 2006 I think it was two and a half to one. We feel, given all the polling that I have seen in the last forty-eight hours combined with our first ever state-wide get out the vote (GOTV) program, where we have made 4.2 million voter calls since April, that we are going to have a very, very good Tuesday night. But with that being said, we are still working hard and running like we are five points down…”