By Bill McMorris Illinois Statehouse News
CHICAGO– Illinois U.S. Senate candidate Mark Kirk is just one of several Republicans running in down-to-the-wire races, but unlike his compatriots is enjoying mixed support from his party's fundraising arms.
The North Shore congressman has pulled into a narrow lead over Democratic Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias in the campaign's final week, according to the latest poll from the Chicago Tribune. But Kirk's three point lead falls within the poll's margin of error.
Kirk has been left out in many fundraising conservative circles.
The Senate Conservatives Fund has raised more than $5.4 million for candidates in the nation's most competitive senate races, with the exception of Illinois.
Matt Hoskins, a spokesman for the fund, would not comment on the matter. But the organization's website lists requirements of candidates, some of which the pro-choice, pro-gun control Kirk does not meet.
"We have plenty of support from a wide array of people across the state," Kirk spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski said. "We've been pretty open about his views."
This did not surprise David Yepsen, director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute.
"Kirk is not as much a conservative as they may like," he said. "It can help him because this is, on the margins, a Democratic state and he doesn't need to be carrying the baggage that some of these groups bring."
Kirk has highlighted his credentials as an independent almost as much as his pro-business, low tax agenda on the campaign trial, in an effort to win over suburban voters, who are generally considered more socially liberal.
The strategy has been successful for Republicans in the past, according to Kent Redfield, director of the Institute for Legislative Studies at University of Illinois at Springfield.
"Kirk fits more in to the mold of (former Governors) Jim Edgar, Jim Thompson and George Ryan," he said. "(Gov. Pat) Quinn is demonizing (GOP candidate Bill) Brady for his social positions and Giannoulias can't do that."
The Giannoulias campaign, for its part, has done its best to try and discredit Kirk as a moderate candidate, associating the congressman with former President George W. Bush–a picture of the two arm-in-arm has been a mainstay of the Democrat's commercials. He has mocked Kirk for seeking the endorsement of Tea Party heavyweight and former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
The distance from national conservative groups like DeMint's and even the Illinois Tea Party–which also has not endorsed him on its web site–could tout his maverick bona fides.
"The omission could be strategic," Redfield said. "Having these hard-right, conservative groups cutting commercials for you could be used by the other side."
The Kirk campaign is not wanting for money, enjoying support from traditional party sources and other conservative backers. He has led Giannoulias in fundraising since the start of the campaign and received $2 million in advertising from the National Republican Senatorial Committee and Crossroads GPS, a group founded by former Bush advisor Karl Rove.
"Kirk has more than enough money and most of the polling show that he's having less trouble with his base than Giannoulias is, so losing (the fund support) is not too big an issue," Redfield said.
The question of Kirk's place in the Republican Party that many expect to win big on Election Day remains murky.
A GOP majority in the U.S. Senate was seen as a near impossibility after the 2008 election rout, which begat a Democratic super-majority after Pennsylvania Republican Arlen Specter switched parties in April 2009. The prospect, however, gained steam with Tea Party backed candidate Scott Brown's election to Ted Kennedy's former senate seat in January 2010.
Pollsters agree that a GOP majority is still a longshot on Nov. 2, but it is not an impossibility. DeMint's fund has been working overtime to realize the goal. It has surpassed sizable fundraising goals for its candidates and pumped six-figure boosts into toss-up races for Democratic seats in West Virginia, Colorado, Washington and Nevada.
Kirk is turning to different avenues of support from Republican heavyweights, including Brown, who stumped for Kirk several times over the summer and will spend Halloween in Chicago with Kirk and gubernatorial hopeful Bill Brady.
Yepsen said Brown is a good fit.
"Scott Brown is a moderate Republican, he's gonna wear pretty well in an upstate, suburban electorate–the same kind that voted him into office," he said.
Brown, like Kirk, grounded his campaign as a response to President Barack Obama's economic policies and healthcare reform, while maintaining socially liberal positions. The Massachusetts senator has a bit of an independent streak of his own, bucking the party line on a range of issues, including Wall Street reform and Obama's Jobs Bill.
"We consider him to be in the same mold as Mark Kirk: a fiscal conservative from a blue state," Kukowski said.
