Replies

---"Brady is the only intelligent choice."---

Wrong. He is the most Conservative choice. He is not the INTELLIGENT choice because voting for him instead of the next most Conservative candidate is likely to ensure that the most liberal candidate possible winds up representing the GOP in the November election.

Then we have a choice: Vote Blagojevich for four more years of liberal activism, or vote Topinka to help ensure a minimum of eight more years of liberal activism, as in 2010 we'll have to choose between her and a liberal Democrat again.

I am usually a person who agrees with supporting ONLY the most Conservative candidate. In most cases, it's because the alternative, though not my favorite choice, is still moderately acceptable for the job (voting, say, Alan Keyes instead of George W. Bush in 2000, for example). The vote is a principled vote, and you can afford to make it because the alternative isn't all that bad. In this case, the likely winner is Topinka, which makes that kind of a decision suicidal. So there's simply no WAY I can vote Brady. Were there no Judy Topinka in the race, it would be an ENTIRELY different story. We are in REAL danger, though, of being in a lose/lose situation for at least the next 4-8 years. And Brady really, really IS in danger of letting his ambition devastate the state he has represented so well for twelve years.

As far as the unions go, WLS even said that the state worker's union had packed the audience, a union that is very pro-Topinka. Did Oberweis fumble the accusation? Yes, ABSOLUTELY. Just as Brady has repeatedly fumbled the illegal immigration issue. But make no mistake about it, you don't hear boos at a Republican debate from a Republican audience, you hear silence for other candidates and applause for chosen candidates. The unions have EVERY interest in shouting down every accusation against Topinka. If you watched the debate, you'll notice they booed Gidwitz for challenging Topinka, too, though not nearly as loudly.

All I'm saying is, if what looks like it's going to happen does happen, Brady is going to be a local representative for the rest of his life. And he's going to be remembered as the Ralph Nader of the 2006 IL GOP elections.

My opinion? He should withdraw, endorse Oberweis, and become a Conservative martyr for the cause. Tell me he wouldn't immediately become the front-runner for the 2008 U.S. Senate race! He'd be a HERO in this state, and could face a newly weakened Dick Durbin and all of his Nazi-U.S.-Troops comments.

As far as Oberweis' ads being false, I get the Brady material, and it is DELIBERATELY misleading. He constantly infers that he's the candidate endorse by the right-to-life groups and socially Conservative organizations, but Oberweis has those endorsements, too. Upon reading my Brady literature, I actually had to check with some organizations to make sure I had remembered correctly and Oberweis was also endorsed. The wording is such that it is meant to infer Brady got those endorsements alone, without actually printing the fallacy.

I do not know where you think this magic 30% is going to materialize from. You can obviously see for yourself even here at Free Republic that Conservatives aren't jumping off the other candidates' bandwagons to join the Brady movement. Where do you think the enormous avalanche of invisible voters is going to come from? Not in the IL political blogs, not at Free Republic, and certainly not in all the radio show call-ins when they talk about the debates. So where is this groundswell going to come from, that can overcome Topinka's gigantic margin over Brady AND the crossover vote from the unpolled union folks, such as the Concrete, Construction, and Trucker's unions which have all endorsed Topinka to spite Blagojevch?

Even if Brady has done the unlikely, and FINALLY found a way to break the single-digit mark, is he really going to triple his numbers in the final two weeks?