Meanwhile, out in Illinois, the various candidates for Barack Obama's old Senate seat, Republican and Democrat, are busy trying to out-outsider each other. The Democratic primary is February 2; the winner of that primary will face GOP Rep. Mark Kirk in the general. Kirk is trying to make the most of the state's "change" sentiment. He's also playing up the "corruption" narrative:
Sen.-elect Brown, who snagged Sen. Ted Kennedy's old seat in an upset last week against Democrat Martha Coakley, showed the GOP how to run “a quiet, disciplined campaign rigorously focusing on economic issues,” Kirk told The Hill. “Many of the same concerns, especially about the corruption inside the healthcare bill, are shared by the people of Illinois. Corruption is probably an even bigger issue in Illinois because of the arrest of Governor [Rod] Blagojevich and his trial coming up this summer.”
