The Arrogance of a One-Party State

Republican Mark Kirk has a good chance to take a decisive Senate seat away from the Democrats.

Massachusetts is supposed to be just the beginning. Now it’s into the lion’s den. This fall, the Republicans intend to take the Senate seat held by Barack Obama before he became president. Illinois seems to have been owned by the Democrats for decades, with a few surprise victories for Republicans every once in a while. In those instances, the Democrats usually returned to the helm after one Republican term. Right now, they own practically every important public office in the state.

Now Mark Kirk intends to upset the apple cart once again. On Tuesday, the 50-year-old Republican lawyer and military reserve officer handily won the Republican nomination to be their candidate for the Senate. Kirk has been in the House of Representatives since 2001, having been reelected four times. Despite that, he’s still seen as an “outsider” and has a good chance of winning with that strategy. His Democratic opponent, Alexi Giannoulias, is the 33-year-old state treasurer who may be too young to be tainted by the Washington political system. But in the eyes of many Americans, Illinois — and especially its biggest city, Chicago — has returned to the limelight in the role of a corrupt political machine run by the Democrats. Gov. Rod Blagojevich was indicted in the winter of 2008/2009 for attempting to auction off political positions to the highest bidder. Then Roland Burris, Obama’s pick to finish out Blagojevich’s term, got caught up in the scandal. He announced he would not run for the seat in the coming elections.

“The people of Illinois now see the arrogance of a one-party state,” Kirk said at his victory, adding, “We know that one political party cannot hold all the answers — and that one political party should never hold all the power.” Kirk combines a reputation for being a moderate pragmatist with a certain measure of worldliness. He studied history in Mexico, economics at the London School of Economics and got his law degree from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. He is a long-time Naval reserve officer, something Americans consider the ultimate proof of patriotism and selflessness. He recently returned from deployment to Afghanistan, having previously served in Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo.