Then their failure to find a Senate candidate only magnified the weakness, and desperation finally reared it's ugly head in the name of Alan Keyes. Not only has Keyes been an embarassment to the state but several close house races are sweating the potential coattails from Obama's upcoming overwhelming victory.
Perhaps it has to do with the Keyes theme. His central message has been how abortion and gay rights are eating away America's moral fiber. He also favors replacing the income tax with a national sales tax (that's working about as well for him as it is for DeMint) and opposes the separation of church and state.
The promotion, which doubled as an absentee ballot application, went to hundreds of thousands of homes and mentioned President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and candidates in congressional and legislative races.
GOP leaders said Keyes was not included in the mailer because he planned to send out comparable materials.
"People are reading too much into this," Illinois GOP spokesman Jason Gerwig told the Chicago Tribune on Wednesday. "We did our mailing and congressional candidates helped coordinate it. The Keyes campaign is doing its own thing."
Keyes spokesman Bill Pascoe said the campaign decided to send its own mailer after learning from party leaders that they were not sure if they would participate in an absentee ballot program.
"We've got 3 million that are being delivered," Pascoe said. "Some through mail, some through newspaper inserts, some through old-fashioned (literature) drops, depending on what part of the state we're talking about."
Some Illinois Republicans have shied away from publicly supporting the outspoken, ultraconservative Keyes, who badly trails Democratic candidate Barack Obama in the polls. State party chairwoman Judy Baar Topinka has said she supports Keyes, but she won't say if she will vote for him.
The GOP recruited Keyes from Maryland to run for the seat being vacated by Republican Sen. Peter Fitzgerald. Keyes got into the race at the urging of conservative Republicans when the original GOP nominee, Jack Ryan, dropped out after the release of court documents showing his ex-wife claimed he pressured her to have sex in front of others.