Illinois Politics... our Senators

The Chicago Tribune today had an article on Sunday titled "Durbin earns top ranking in study as most liberal senator" that is pretty self-explanatory. Per the article:

"The rankings, based on 84 key senate votes, identified Durbin's record as slightly more liberal than those of Sen. Barbara Boxer and Sen. Edward Kennedy, who were ranked second and third most liberal respectively for 2006"

Of course, Durbin's camp started squealing that this ranking wasn't correct, since "liberal" isn't really a word that goes down too well across the state of Illinois. Certainly, you have areas like Wicker Park where I used to live that is totally, deep blue but then you have the heavily armed downstate and the ferociously conservative suburbs, too. And who is the most liberal presidential candidate on the Democrats side - Obama, of course (based on senate votes).

This sorry state of non-representative politicians falls squarely on the Illinois Republican party, possibly the worst-run institution of its kind in the land. Illinois could easily come up with a decent Republican showing if candidates were run that were marginally palatable to the center, but instead we get a circus with guys like Alan Keyes (memorably skewered in the Borat movie, no less) and overlaid with the pathetic circus of Governor Ryan trying to avoid jail after his conviction.

I have to hang my head in shame that Durbin is actually worse for the country than Kennedy or Boxer... this really is the consequence of the enormous failure of our Republican party to field, groom or run decent candidates.