|
Kenyan-born
US Senate hopeful, Barrack Obama,
appeared set to take over the Illinois
Senate seat after his main rival, Jack
Ryan, dropped out of the race on Friday
night amid a furor over lurid sex club
allegations.
The
allegations that horrified fellow
Republicans and caused his
once-promising candidacy to implode in
four short days have given Obama a clear
lead as Republicans struggled to fetch
an alternative.
Ryan’s
campaign began to crumble on Monday
following the release of embarrassing
records from his divorce. In the
records, his ex-wife, Boston Public
actress Jeri Ryan, said her former
husband took her to kinky sex clubs in
Paris, New York and New Orleans.
|
|
 |
|
Barrack Obama |
|
"It’s clear to me that a vigorous debate on the
issues most likely could not take place if I
remain in the race," Ryan, 44, said in a
statement. "What would take place, rather, is a
brutal, scorched-earth campaign – the kind of
campaign that has turned off so many voters, the
kind of politics I refuse to play."
Although Ryan disputed the allegations, saying
he and his wife went to one ‘avant-garde’ club
in Paris and left because they felt
uncomfortable, lashed out at the media and said
it was "truly outrageous" that the Chicago
Tribune got a judge to unseal the records.
The Republican choice will become an instant
underdog in the campaign for the seat of
retiring Republican Senator Peter Fitzgerald,
since Obama held a wide lead even before the
scandal broke.
"I feel for him actually," Obama told a Chicago
TV station. "What he’s gone through over the
last three days I think is something you
wouldn’t wish on anybody."
The Republican state committee must now choose a
replacement for Ryan, who had won in the
primaries against seven contenders. Its task is
complicated by the fact that Obama holds a
comfortable lead in the polls and is widely
regarded as a rising Democratic star.
The chairwoman of the Illinois Republican Party,
Judy Topinka, said at a news conference, after
Ryan withdrew, that Republicans would probably
take several weeks to settle on a new candidate.
"Obviously, this is a bad week for our party and
our state," she said.
As recently as
Thursday, spokesmen for the Ryan campaign still
insisted that Ryan would remain in the race.
Ryan had defended himself saying, "There’s no
breaking of any laws. There’s no breaking of any
marriage laws. There’s no breaking of the Ten
Commandments anywhere."
—AP
|
