By Mark Rhoads
Let's assume for the sake of argument that Congressman Mark Kirk understands that for this first time in his life he is now in a statewide race against a competitive Democrat who, in spite of his own challenges, nevertheless has run statewide before and won. Let us further assume that Kirk would like to win the race for the former Obama Senate seat. With a hat tip to Sen. Scott Brown, let us call it instead "the people's seat."
The question needs to be asked. Does Mark Kirk know how to move beyond is old north shore moderate Republican comfort zone? It seems common sense that by now he would be actively cultivating volunteers outside his old tenth congressional district and looking for more conservative supporters in other parts of Illinois. But is he doing that? If so, is that effort visible? If not, why not? Why does anyone care?
Assume further that there might be a smattering of conservative Republicans who are pragmatic enough to understand that while they have had serious differences with Mark Kirk, they still might want to see him defeat Alex Giannoulias because a GOP Senate Seat win in Illinois would also help many more conservative Republican Senators-elect if they can organize a majority in January 2011. The argument goes that a Kirk win would help cement a GOP majority with control of all committees and so forth. That argument further goes that even if Kirk wandered off the GOP reservation on roll call votes no more often in the Senate than he did in the House, then it is definitely worth depriving Democrats of the seat for its own sake.
So the mystery is what is the campaign plan for Cong. Kirk to expand his old base and win? Newspaper editorial boards love a candidate like Mark Kirk because they love moderate Republicans. But it is a mistake to think that editorial boards are as influential in any November election now as they once were many years ago or as some are in a primary. They don't count for nothing, but really count for very little in a general election dominated by TV markets. So newspaper editorial endorsements, even if a candidate has many of them in a general, should not be confused with a "base" of core voters who make the difference in terms of energy and numbers. From different points on the spectrum, both Barack Obama and Scott Brown proved that organization still matters a lot and that new media is a great organizing tool. But you still have to have some coherent message and some positive narrative to motivate people to want to vote for your candidate.
A Feb. 24 poll by Daily Kos showed 23 percent of Illinois voters has no opinion at all about Mark Kirk either favorable or unfavorable and the comparable number for Alex Giannoulias was 17 percent. A far more surprsing data point was that both Kirk and Giannoulias had roughly similar unfavorable ratings. So far, Giannoulias has not paid the price for negative publicity that most observers would expect him to and that might help account for him doing better than expected in the one to one match up polls at this point. CLICK HERE TO SEE POLL.
The high "no opinion" factor for Mark Kirk is another way to say that Mark Kirk is not very well known outside his own old congressional district in a large state like Illinois. Few House members are but Kirk campaign advisors might have the misperception that is he well known because he is well known in their circles and by Chicago media. That is another example of how Chicago media dominance on cable can sometimes distort statewide political perceptions.But first of all Mark Kirk needs to be better known in downstate Illinois among rank and file GOP precinct committeemen and voters. That is a necessary first building block to better general name recognition and a favorable image. You cannot skip that step in a whole series of necessary steps. Kirk can only do himself good by making a better outreach effort to intoduce himself to conservative organizations and leaders outside Cook County. So is he doing that? Is he doing it enough? Does he think old media alone will attract a majority of voters to a previously unknown candidate in a statewide race? Does he have a plan to get across the finish line in a statewide race that does not merely rely on mistakes by Giannoulias?
