Burnt Orange Report

Well on one hand it is nice to see the parties acknowledge they both have viable African American candidates to offer. But on the other hand it is disappointing to see the republicans play the race card so hard they would go and dig up Keyes.

Apparently IL does not have rules indicating a candidate must actually be a resident of the state? That certainly seems odd.

It will be interesting to see how many votes Keyes or the other candidate receive. But it will be a huge shocker if Barack does not win.

Well on one hand it is nice to see the parties acknowledge they both have viable African American candidates to offer. But on the other hand it is disappointing to see the republicans play the race card so hard they would go and dig up Keyes.

Apparently IL does not have rules indicating a candidate must actually be a resident of the state? That certainly seems odd.

It will be interesting to see how many votes Keyes or the other candidate receive. But it will be a huge shocker if Barack does not win.

Aren't there any gays in Missouri?
www.campaignline.com/webedition/page.cfm?navid=51&pageid=395

States CANNOT add additional qualifications to run for Federal offices -- such as length of residence; there was a recent Sup. Court ruling relative to a state (Arizona IIRC) trying to impose Congressional term limits. You just have to be a resident of the state at the time when you are elected.

Changing states of residence has been a common practice for Senate candidates for years -- especially in the case of ones moving into NY (Robert Kennedy and Hillary Clinton come to mind).

Seems pretty amazing to me that in Illinois, a state of 12.5 million people, these are the only two the Republicans can come up with to run for the U.S. Senate. But if residency isn't an issue, that opens it up to all the voting age adults in the U.S. And this is still the best the Republicans could do? I'd say the Illinois Republican Party is in shambles....and it may get worse.

Illinois has a political culture of pragmatic moderation and tolerance which pre-dates the Civil War. There was a discussion of this recently on Chicago Public Radio.
http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/DWP_XML/848/2004_08/848_20040802_0935_2712/segment_147230.ram

Our last GOP governor won by campaigning to the left of his Democratic opponent. And when he won, he governed even further to the left.
A doctrinaire conservative has little chance of winning this Senate seat and no chance of beating the second most charismatic living Democrat.

Keyes would cause Obama to spend more time campaigning and fundraising in state. Perhaps the Republicans just want to keep Obama busy in Illinois so that he doesn't have much time to campaign for the national ticket in nearby battleground states like Iowa, Missouri, and Wisconsin.

As I recall from when Keys ran for president, he was considered among the "far right" of candidates. Wonder how this will play in IL?

Oh we should only hope that they pick Keyes. They might as well go ahead and crown Barack now. And I loved their comment their choice having NOTHING to do with race. That is about the same as the KKK saying they picked a white guy and it had nothing to do with race.

One need only be a resident of Illinois by election day to serve in the Senate from the state, to answer an earlier question.

Obviously the supreme court does not hold my view but I am surprised that the ability to just move into the STATE by the day of the election is all that is required to serve on behalf of the population of that state. Do I think Hillary's situation was an exception - of course, but in general certainly not an idea I would favor.

Surprised that with the hatred toward the carpetbaggers of the past that this was fixed long ago. We could only hope for term limits for the Senate.

Finally, I apologize for my double posting. I am new to the blogging scene and trying to get the hang of things.