The Smoke Clears In Wake of Petition Filings... Now Off to the Primaries (UPDATED)

Well, now that the excitement of the filing deadline for nomination petitions is in the rear view mirrors, let's look at the couple of races we've been covering to see exactly what happened.

In the U.S. Senate race, we had a bit of a surprise with conservative candidate Pat Hughes apparently filing early yesterday (despite his claim that he purposely was holding back so he could appear last on the ballot), and then withdrew his filing and refiled later in the day. While one might assume this was all according to plan, the word TA hears is that some Hughes supporter mistakenly sent in a page which was filed, and then Hughes had to withdraw that and file his complete set of petitions. If correct, it doesn't speak well of Hughes' organization, once again. But interestingly, even though another conservative contender, Eric Wallace, decided not to file after all, two other candidates, Bob Zadek of Rockford and Tom Kuna of Jerseyville, filed AFTER Hughes, so unless both of these men get knocked off the ballot in a challenge, Pat still isn't going to be last.

As we've said before, we don't think the ballot position is particularly important in a top-tier kind of race like U.S. Senate, so this is mostly a lot of posturing for nothing. Maybe more interesting is whether Wallace's withdrawal will portend a conservative rally around Hughes, but the fact that Wallace did not endorse Hughes immediately either means that Wallace is still smarting from the previous suggestion from one of Hughes' operatives that Wallace should get out of the race, or that Wallace is going to hold out until Hughes does some serious tush-kissing of Wallace (which Pat, being a proud guy, is going to loathe). Whether any of this could put any other candidate in spitting distance of Congressman Mark Kirk, is questionable, even under the best of circumstances for them.

On the Dem side, several new candidates also filed, joining the pack of Giannoulias, Hoffman, Jackson and Meister- we now have Robert Marshall of Burr Ridge, Corey Dabney of Aurora, and Willie Boyd, Jr. of Greenville. Green candidate LeAlan Jones of Chicago also filed.

Things are also interesting in the 10th District, where two other Democratic contenders join Dan Seals and State Rep. Julie Hamos. Highland Park attorney Elliot Richardson, who was actually the first Democrat to officially announce for the position, if I recall, finally got his petitions turned in the other day, and a Milton Sumption of Lake Bluff also filed.

On the GOP side in IL-10, in addition to Bill Cadigan, Beth Coulson, Dick Green, Bob Dold, and Paul Hamann, Patricia Bird of Mount Prospect surprisingly filed after all, and an Arie Friedman of Highland Park also filed. Richard Mayers of Chicago, a Green Party candidate, also filed.

That all I have time for this morning, but we'll be looking at downballot races as the days go by, including the 59th Legislative District as that primary battle heats up, and may even look at the Guv race, although lots of other blog dissect that better than we can.

UPDATED 10:00 a.m.: Over at Illinois Review, camp Hughes (via Charlie Johnston) explains what happened with the Hughes filing yesterday, which confirms our understanding as we reported it, but you can read it from the horse's mouth at IR if anyone is that interested.