The American Spectator

p> NOISE IN ILLINOIS br> Last week White House adviser Karl Rove spent time in Chicago dining with and talking to state Republican Party officials and high-end donors about the coming election cycle. Illinois, it is assumed, will be voting largely Democratic in 2004, but it appears that Rove isn’t willing to give the Democrats an easy win. This is in part due to the retirement of Sen. Peter Fitzgerald and the creation of an open Senate seat that is going to be critical to both parties for control of that chamber. /p>

“Rove talked glowingly about Jim Edgar,” said an attendee at the dinner, referring to the former Illinois governor who has indicated a willingness to run for Fitzgerald’s seat. “The way he talked, it sounded like it was fifty-fifty Edgar would run.”

It is known that Rove did speak with Edgar on this trip, but other Republicans are getting involved in the recruitment. Next week Senate Majority leader Bill Frist, and Sen. George Allen, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, will be in Chicago to meet with Edgar as well as many of the same people Rove met with.

“Edgar is the guy. Right now he’s the only one we’re focusing on,” says an NRSC staffer.

Edgar has been coy about his candidacy, saying all the right things but declining to throw himself fully into the campaign pool. While viewed as a moderate, Edgar presents the same kind of attractive package that helped Elizabeth Dole win in North Carolina last election cycle: he has the name recognition, the donor support, and the ability to fundraise outside the state, and his presence in the race would clear the primary of any other competition.

That is, unless he makes Club for Growth president Stephen Moore really mad.

p> WARNER THEATER