I met Adam Andrzejewski at the Champaign County Republican Lincoln Day Dinner last year. He was a nice guy, but I never thought he had much of a chance in his race for Governor. He ran relatively quietly under the radar for most of the election, polling generally in low single digits.
Then, he did something rather brilliant. He convinced a number of non-Illinois conservative leaders that he was THE tea party candidate for Illinois and created a little bit of a national boomlet. Red State, Gateway, Instapundit, and Geraghty all touted Adam as the Tea Party candidate. It culminated the day before the election when Rush Limbaugh called him the next Scott Brown.
Andrzejewski was certainly A tea party candidate, but the suggestion that somehow he was THE ONLY one with a grip on those people who would associate themselves with the tea party movement was ill informed. And no one should take his 14% total as reflecting the state of the tea party movement in Illinois. In declining degrees, I'd say that Proft, Brady, and McKenna could all comfortably wrap themselves around the less taxes, less spending, less regulation efforts of tea party activists.
It's interesting that Limbaugh would call the never-elected Andrzejewski the next Scott Brown. Brown held three different elected positions. Chris Christie served as US District Attorney. Bob McDonnell served as AG in Virginia as well as a number of other positions.
I think it will take a lot more than some nifty reform slogans for candidates to sway Republican primary voters. At least some degree of public service will still carry signficant weight, and will probably always be required.
At the same time, Andrzejewski's national momentum strategy was brilliant and was executed to perfection.
Andrzejewski represents a lot of what is encouraging about the future of the Republican Party. I hope he remains involved.
