I think the most important numbers will be Obama’s disapproval ratings around that time. The WH’s political attack dogs simply can not afford to sit on their well-muscled butts and let the IL-Sen seat go the way of TeddieK’s seat. They’re in there, right now, swinging dead cats and kiddies in prams in order to remain competitive in a race doomed-to-their-defeat from the get-go. The WH & Cook County Dem Party were fearful that Alexi Giannoulias would, indeed, win the primary. Even ACORN can’t guarantee that many dead voters showing up to balance off Alexi Giannoulias’ taint of defeat and rotting political corpse… or being pegged as the poster boi for the real estate/banking recession.

He is THE nightmare candidate. It’s like having David Duke run as a GOPer. Alexi, the bagman for Tony Rezko and Barrie Obama? Yeow. And those sharkskinned suits? Ditch ‘em baby, even Barrie O doesn’t wear ‘em anymore.

The best thing for Kirk and the natl GOP machine would be for the Democrats to trot out those ol’, tired Democrat warhorses of Slick Willy and JimmineyCricket… and any former Democrat IL governor who isn’t serving a federal sentence… oh wait, they might want to stick to Slick Willy and JimmineyCricket. They need to make like Obama doesn’t exist. They need to continue the fiction that Congress is controlled by the GOP… which, incredibly, nearly 80% of Obama supporters actually believed on E-Day ‘08.

But Obama will be in the thick of things for this race; maybe they think it can’t hurt Alexi Giannoulias any worse than all the baggage Giannoulias already brings to the race. Frankly, Obama ought to check to see if the AirForce1 can get a permanent rental space at Midway… that’s how often he’ll be “in-town”. And my prediction, a week out from the Nov election, Obama will go on Oprah and shed a few metrosexual tears over why it’s so important for “us” to keep that seat. He’ll actually be seen remorseful and tear-stricken. And Oprah will cry with him. Sympathy is the last tool of a humiliated ego and fool.