The editors of the Chicago Tribune explain how they had to struggle with their consciences to endorse the re-election of Dick Durbin to the Senate:
We often disagree with Durbin on issues. But we would rather have Illinois represented by a highly capable partisan than by a less capable partisan.
My misgivings about Durbin extend farther than those of the Trib editors. I don’t think that he’s been a particularly effective senator for Illinois. Even when they’ve risen to leadership roles in the Senate, senators aren’t elected to represent the whole country. They’re elected to represent their states and I do not see that Illinois has prospered through Sen. Durbin’s tenure or Senate leadership. Just look around you at the statistics. We lead the country in lost jobs, lost companies, and net outmigration. Although Illinois didn’t share in the huge run-up in home prices seen in California or Nevada, we haven’t shared in the housing price recovery, either.
In the final analysis a candidate for the Senate does not need to be the best of all possible candidates. Merely better than his or her opponent. This epitomizes the problem with the Republican Party ion Illinois:
In their primary, Republicans did have a promising candidate, political newcomer Doug Truax: West Point grad, former Army Ranger, owner of an Oak Brook firm helping employers address the costs of health care and retirement benefits. He had smart ideas for rescuing entitlement programs and reforming the tax code.
Republicans instead nominated Jim Oberweis, a business executive who in 2012 won an Illinois Senate seat after five unsuccessful runs for higher offices.
During that candidate debate with Durbin, Oberweis was every bit as partisan, but more evasive and not as prepared to delve into difficult issues such as immigration and federal finances. Oberweis’ campaign rests on stock GOP themes — less government, lower taxation — and that’s fine. But we have no faith he’d be a change agent in the Senate. When he finally got elected to something — the state Senate — he could have served a term and built a record. Instead, he quickly jumped into the next campaign, for the U.S. Senate.
They have an unerring instinct for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. In a year in which events are breaking in favor of the Republicans they fail to nominate a decent candidate. I am thoroughly unimpressed with Jim Oberweis. Love his milk but hate his politics.
You can’t elect a change-agent to the Senate. A new Senator has pretty much zero power, save for two things. First, who they vote for for Party Leader. And that’s usually decided well before they get there. Or by shaking up the old power structure by eliminating a powerful Senator or effecting the party balance. Otherwise generic Senator X is just a king without a kingdom.
The good news for me is that I don’t live in Texas, as their gubernatorial campaign is worse than ours. Seriously, Wendy Davis is making Crist look like a decent human being by comparison.
And I experienced something new today. Someone acknowledged to me that the Republicans suck just as bad as the Dems on about 90% of the issues (including the ones I care about most), but that I hated America and liberty for not voting straight Republican party ticket. Wow!