After being officially being declared the winner in the Republican gubernatorial primary last week, a Rasmussen Reports poll shows state senator Billy Brady leading incumbent Governor Quinn. With the poll showing Brady leading Quinn 47%-37%, what does each candidate need to do to win?
Brady
Much of Brady's 10 percentage point lead is probably due to his lack of name recognition in the Chicagoland area. Brady is an unknown name and voice to most, if not all, of the Chicago area voters, and in such a charged political climate, he is someone voters are looking for: an unknown.
One must understand that an unknown is not an outsider. Brady has served in the Illinois legislature since 1993. So, he certainly knows (or should know) the ropes. Also, Brady has chosen to serve as senator while campaigning, and that could come back to hurt him.
Since Republicans control only 22 (of 59) seats in the state senate, Democrats can try to paint Brady in a corner. Already, some groups are trying to portray Brady as too extreme for Illinois. While Brady is not necessarily extreme, he is very conservative. Brady opposes gay marriage, civil unions, and has expressed banning gay marriage in Illinois through a constitutional amendment. Brady also opposes all abortion except for when the mother's life is at stake. Also, since he will have to vote on the budget, Democrats can force Brady's hand on various issues in an attempt to confuse voters over his positions or make him look foolish.
One issue that may make Brady popular with voters is his desire to place terms limits on Illinois House and Senate members. He would limit House members to five terms (ten years) and Senate members to three terms (two four years and one two year). With that in mind, Brady may be hit by the Democrats because of his tenure in Springfield. Quinn could paint Brady as part of the Springfield problem.
On the typical liberal side, Brady does support forms of alternative energy. Brady has encouraged the state to use wind, solar, and biofuel in addition to energy such as coal, natural gas, and nuclear power.
Brady has also taken a no tax pledge, saying he would not raise income or sales taxes. However, this could be a weak spot if he is elected because Illinois faces such a daunting budget deficit, public debt, and pension obligation debt that not raising taxes would be near impossible.
All in all, Brady may be helped by voter dissatisfaction with the status quo. The Rasmussen poll showed 9% of voters undecided and 6% supporting another candidate. The wild card is Green Party candidate Rich Whitney. He received 10% of the vote in 2006, and if he receives 9% or more, many votes may be taken away from Quinn, thus giving Brady victory.
Quinn
People must not forget that Quinn is a fighter, and has been in politics a long time. He has not had many positions of power until now, but he does know the ropes. The last polls before the Democratic primary showed Quinn trailing Hynes, after having a big lead that Hynes destroyed with various advertisements. But, Quinn fought back and won.
However, Quinn is running a risky strategy by pushing for tax hikes in an election season. At the same time, one must give Quinn kudos for being the most honest candidate (so far). The state of Illinois needs massive spending cuts, and massive tax increases. It is the only way to restore the state to a healthy fiscal position. But, voters hate taxes with a passion, and with anger over jobs and unemployment, tax increases are a bad deal. Then again, as I mentioned, Quinn is being honest by saying he wants to raise taxes.
Quinn has a wide ranging jobs program that encompasses alternative energy, public works including highways and high speed rail, high speed internet, reaching out to international markets for Illinois, increasing exports, and providing capital from the state for small businesses.
Both Quinn and Brady support recall for elected officials as part of their government reform packages.
Quinn faces stiff backlash because he represents the status quo. Many voters see little or no improvement from the Blagojevich years, and may put that blame on Quinn. However, Quinn does have the ability to portray Brady's social positions as out of touch with the majority of Illinois voters. At the same time, Quinn can also say Brady plays to special interests, since Brady proposed a bill to allow mass euthanization of dogs in order to help a business in his district. Then, when the dog story became a headline, Brady passed the bill's sponsorship onto another Republican state senator and said he did it because "It's not ready." Here, Democrats can again hit Brady by saying he is not fully prepared and sticks his neck out without having solid ground to stand on.
With the strengths and weaknesses of both candidates, this election should be very interesting and exciting. Expect the clean campaign to get dirty, first from outside groups, and later from the candidates themselves. Also, keep in mind the Rich Whitney wild card factor.
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Tags: bill brady, democrat, democrats, election, government, governor, illinois, illinois politics, pat quinn, politics, poll, republican, republicans
Um, where's the analysis for the supposed Whitney "wild card." People in Illinois are suffering from IL corruption/scandal fatigue of the two major parties.
And I think the spoiler argument is pretty thin as conservatives like Whitney on the transparency/clean government angle and that Whitney supports the 2nd amendment.
Just take a look at this 2006 CNN exit polling where the Whitney pulled EVENLY from self-identified Dems and Repubs. Whitney pulled 8% from Dems and 7% from Republicans. And an impressive 22% from Indys.
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2006/pages/results/states/IL/G/00/epolls.0.html
Rich Whitney is a GREEN PARTY candidate.
WhitneyforGov.org
Whitney is not a conservative by any means.
I didn't say Whitney was a conservative. I said that conservatives would favor Whitney over the other two parties because of their tainted ways.
I think many traditional conservatives would place a higher value on a true clean government candidate as their 1st issue to vote on.
Whitney has views that are far out of conservatism, so I doubt many would vote for him if they knew him, but he could pick up a lot of the dissatisfied conservatives who are upset with the Illinois GOP.
I am surprised you think Whitney is conservative. As far as clean government and gun rights, you need to look at the Libertarian Party this year. Go to my web site www.electlex.com