[fieldmarshaldj]

"Ryan's signs have no hint of his last name, only the words "JACK!" and "U.S. Senate,"

Think Jack has been reading my posts on FR ? :-)

Alas, the 'Rats can follow up the GOP cheer of "You don't know Jack !" with a rejoinder of, "But we DO know Ryan !"

[SunkenCiv]

Too Good to Win
by George F. Will
Washington Post
Sunday, November 2, 2003

Ryan is campaigning for the Republican nomination for the Senate seat held by Peter Fitzgerald, a Republican who is retiring. Illinois has become inhospitable to Republicans. In 1988, George H.W. Bush carried Illinois 51 percent to 49 percent. In 1992 and 1996 Bill Clinton carried it 49-34 and 54-37. In 2000 Al Gore carried it 55-43. To win in 2004, Ryan probably will have to run far ahead of President Bush... [H]e favors the basic Republican agenda -- limited government, personal responsibility, strong national defense. But he is, above all, a moralist who hopes to get the state exercised about the fact that 410,000 of its children -- 270,000 of them in Chicago -- are in failing schools, as such schools are defined by the No Child Left Behind law... Or he will win and, being intelligent and impatient, will hate life in the Senate, where grandees such as Ted Kennedy, for whom public schools are distant rumors, get away with blocking school choice for poor inner-city children.