Republicans dream of winning Obama's old seat

Newly emboldened Republicans are daring to hope that a moderate member of the United States Congress from Illinois has a serious chance of taking an open Senate seat after he scored a decisive victory in a hard-fought primary contest yesterday.

The victory of Mark Kirk, a mostly moderate Republican congressman, who easily outran his more conservative rivals in the primary race, means that Illinois will become one of the hot-points of the mid-term elections in November. He is vying for the Senate seat that was once held by President Barack Obama.

He will go up against Alexi Giannoulias, the 33-year-old state Treasurer, who had a far more difficult time warding off rivals to win the Democrat primary race yesterday. Giannoulias used to play basketball with Obama and will need all the help he can get from his old friend if he is going to ward off Kirk.

That the usually reliably blue Illinois - the Republicans hold no state-wide offices and are in the minority in the state legislature - is even in play in the mid-terms would have been unthinkable until two weeks ago, when Senator Scott Brown took Ted Kennedy's old seat in Massachusetts, another state that was meant to be solidly Democrat.

As party officials pored over the Illinois results, Obama met Democrat members of the US Senate to stiffen their spines after the shock of Massachusetts. "We still have to lead ... the American people are out of patience with business as usual," he argued before taking questions. Saying that passing healthcare reform remained a top priority, he urged them not to "tread lightly, keep your head down and play it safe".

Giannoulias faces several challenges to hold on to the Illinois seat for the Democrats. The state has a crippling budget deficit and at 10.8 per cent an unemployment rate that is higher than the national average. The state pension fund is US$80 billion ($115 billion) underfunded, and, according to a recent survey, Illinois is second only to the disaster zone of Michigan for the disproportion between people leaving and those moving in.

To stop the Kirk steamroller, the Democrats will have to use the full weight of their influence in Illinois. However, for many voters, it is the slightly bad smell of the Democrat political "machine" in the state that may send them running to the Republican.

- INDEPENDENT