Click here to read why Mark Kirk is the new Judy Baar Topinka. |
The big media pundits – flying along up there at 30,000 feet like I mentioned here – continue to think Mark Kirk is the go-to guy for Republicans in Illinois when it comes to the U.S. Senate seat.
This is terribly ironic since Pennsylvania U.S. Senator Arlen Spector, who in many ways has a more “Republican” voting record than Mark Kirk, just jumped ship and is now a Democrat. The geniuses who run things at the National Republican Senatorial Committee evidently don’t learn. The NRSC’s Sen. John Cornyn talks up Kirk’s candidacy even as he and his fellow Republican senators bash their old pal Arlen.
Last week former 5th Congressional District Republican candidate Rosanna Pulidopenned a hard hitting piece directed at one of the big pundits on the political right,Hugh Hewitt. Pulido wrote:
“At the end of the evening when confronted with his profession of support for this RINO Mark Kirk, Hewitt who is a self described conservative, Evangelical Christian repeated the refrain ‘We have got to win, we have got to win, we have got to win!'”
Of course what Hewitt doesn’t understand – like so many other big names and big office holders – is that Republicans already know how to win. They won the White House and held majorities in both Houses of Congress. What they don’t know how to do is advance an agenda once they get there. (You can read a lot more on that subject here.)
When they don’t advance a GOP platform principle based agenda, voters toss them out.
The only way to prevent that cycle from repeating is to run more candidates who are serious about getting the job done once in office. Mark Kirk has been wrong on way too many votes to be considered the kind of standard bearer the GOP needs if it’s going to win and then succeed at governing.
As I’ve written previously, he should stay put. Or, he should resign. Or, as my colleague Cathy Santos wrote here, he should admit that ideologically he actually preceded Arlen Spector out the door.
To read more about why Mark Kirk is the wrong choice for the Illinois GOP, follow these links:
Mark Kirk is the new Judy Baar Topinka
Isn’t it time Mark Kirk came out of the closet?
Homosexual pilgrims and Republican Congressman Mark Kirk
Roskam & Kirk: Courage, moral confusion and litmus tests (Part 1)
Roskam & Kirk: Courage, moral confusion and litmus tests (Part 2)
©2009 John F. Biver