Kirk: No Margin for Error
A debate is raging in Illinois over the possible transfer of terror suspects from Guantanamo Bay to a nearly empty prison facility Illinois" href="http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2009/11/officials_to_inspect_ill_jail_for_gitmo_inmates.php" target="_blank">in Thompson, Illinois (which is roughly 150 miles west of Chicago.)
Mark Kirk, the frontrunner to be the GOP nominee for President Obama’s old Senate seat, pounced on the opportunity to display his conservative bona-fides on national security to a base that seems deeply skeptical of his generally moderate social views.
If ever there was an issue that a Republican candidate would be safe taking a hard line on, the Thompson prison debate would seem to be it. Yet Kirk’s criticism of Democrats has generated considerable backlash from the normally Kirk-friendly mainstream Chicago press (the Chicago Sun Times, and the Chicago Tribune) and has given Kirk’s Democratic rivals grounds to rip into him for playing partisan politics (a dirty word these days in Illinois) over the possible jobs which would be created by the prisoner transfer. If taking a hard line on literally keeping terrorists out of Illinois generated this sort of backlash…one can only imagine the kind of heat Kirk will take if he has to move right on his more moderate social positions (the news that Kirk’s campaign had sent a basic memo to the Palin camp when she was in town caused a considerable uproar).
The conclusion (I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again): the right should leave Mark Kirk alone if it cares about Republicans winning the Illinois Senate seat.