Battleground state?

This guy must be nuts:

The Keyes candidacy also poses a dilemma for Democratic presidential contender John Kerry, and potentially a dividend for Bush. Illinois is no lock for the Democrats. It’s a highly contested key battleground state.

I mean, come on, even The Daily Show has written Illinois off as a “blue state”. The rest of the column makes some sense, but I think the “carpetbagger” moniker and Keyes own taped quotes about Hillary are going to do more damage than he thinks. As long as Barack doesn’t have any skeletons in his closet, he’s going to skate through this one.