  Here's a lesson in how meaningless party labels are these days, and how if you think there is a vast sea of philosophical difference between Republicans and Democrats you may be fooling yourself. When the primaries were over this spring urlLink Jack Ryan emerged as the Republican nominee for Senate, and then little by little his position eroded. First divorce records were released and then the specifics of his sexual predilections were open for all to see. Without going into the details, lets just say he was interested in having sex with his wife - but his wife didn't have a lot of affinity for the real estate involved. Location location location. So out he goes. It would make sense if the Republicans went down the list and went to the candidate that finished second in the primary, get behind him and get the campaign going. You would think that would make sense. Except they first entertained the notion of putting urlLink Mike Ditka up. This would have been fun for about a week, and then it would have stopped being fun. And then the Democrats would win the seat and the Republicans would have been entertaining but they wouldn't have to worry about an outsider taking hold of their party.
And that, you see, is what it is all about when all is said and done. They haven't moved down to the second place finisher - and won't - because urlLink Jim Oberweis is simply not one of the insiders in the Illinois Republican party. You will hear he frightened people with his anti-immigration talk and that he has no experience and so forth - but the real reason the party won't move him to the front is they don't need an outsider threatening their hold on the party reigns. Party ownership - not issues or a senate seat - is what this is about. And holding those reigns in the State Treasurer - the highest elected Republican in the state, Judy Barr Topinka, who (like party bosses all over the country have done and will do from either side of the aisle as long as the two majors hold sway in this country) would rather lose this election than raise an outsider up in the party ranks to threaten her own power.
Judy Barr Topinka - the head of the "conservative" Republican party that will lose Illinois for their President in no small way probably because of urlLink stunts like this one. How exactly does one reconcile that with the national party's stance? I don't know... maybe ask good buddies of the President like urlLink Arlen Specter how these things happen.
Or - for anyone in Illinois who needs further proof how conservative insurgents not of the rank and file or near the leadership decision-makers of the party will fare - ask if anybody remembers anti-abortion, anti-gun control, anti-tax, not-one-of-the-party-leaders, won-the-primary-grass-roots-style, got-abandoned-by-the-party-bosses candidate from the 90s by the name of urlLink Al Salvi. He could tell you what Illinois's "conservatives" are all about... urlLink MORE… 
