Illinois Primary Postmortem

Last updated on: March 19, 2014 at 3:30 pm by Jane the Actuary

Illinois Primary Postmortem 2014-03-19T15:30:00-06:00 Jane the Actuary

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The election’s over.

And as far as the Illinois general election is concerned, it is truly over with.

Bruce Rauner vs. Pat Quinn for governor? Rauner is very much in the “social liberal” camp, so far as I can tell. So Rauner won’t be able to count on the enthusiasm of the GOP base; he’ll need to keep forking out his own money to counter what will presumably be massive spending on the part of the unions. Will enough general election voters believe his assertions that he can fix Illinois by Standing Up to the Unions™? Unlikely.

Jim Oberweis vs. Dick Durbin for senator? It may be that Durbin is too far to the left to capture the interest of independents. But I just can’t imagine a single independent voter voting for Oberweis, after his failed attempts at statewide elections in the past. The fact that the Republican party was more than happy to support him (at least, I got a mailer from my township Republican party saying that he was their endorsed candidate) is pretty sad, and shows that they’re writing off this race.

In both cases, though, the results were closer than I expected. Oberweis defeated Truax by 56% – 44% or something like that, which, while decisive, shows that Truax had more of a chance than I expected, given that he had no money that I could tell, and certainly no name recognition. Were those votes coming as a result of the Tribune endorsement? Due to voters actually looking him up? Due to some advertisements that I just haven’t seen? Or were they based on opposition to Oberweis?

And Kirk Dillard came rather close to Rauner. If you assume that people were, first and foremost either voting for or against Rauner, then deciding, if “against,” which other candidate to choose, then the anti-Rauner vote far exceeded the pro-Rauner vote, and if it had been split between fewer candidates – if for instance, Rutherford had had the decency to drop out – Dillard might have had a chance.

Could Dillard have had more of a chance if people had believed it to be the case? What was the turnout? Did too many voters believe it was a foregone conclusion and not bother? (The weather was great yesterday, so that’s not an excuse!) Or did Dillard lose too many voters due to the teacher’s union endorsement, anyway?

Most pathetic was the race for 9th House district: the official GOP nominee is, according to the Tribune, a real crackpot. No joke.

Yes, this is a gerrymandered district, and whoever the nominee is, has an uphill battle, to say the least. But to have such a crackpot candidate – it’s not just embarrassing, it fundamentally says that in Illinois, the GOP might as well just shut down. Yes, the GOP disowned her, but they also didn’t bother to support any opponent, either.

So what next?

Jane the Actuary for Congress?

What do you do when you’re in a two-party system, and the party you identify with, is so thoroughly broken in your local area? Long-term, my goal isn’t to write snarky commentary on the internet, or even to find a writing niche like Megan McArdle or Heather McDonald, but the more ambitious (and yet, I know, stupidly naïve) notion of finding a way to have people actually listen to what I have to say, and saying things that are intelligent enough to listen to.

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