We deeply regret not getting involved in the Illinois primaries for Governor and Senate candidates, respectively, Adam Andrzejewski (R) and David Hoffman (D).

These two men are whom Illinois should send to Springfield and Washington.

We’ve met Andrzejewski numerous times here in Chicago at various events for the last year and a half, and found him to be, sincerely, the nicest man we have ever known who is involved in politics. He is kind, smart, articulate, well-read, and has a sincere PASSION inside him for tearing open the books in Illinois and auditing the waste and corruption in this state, for every man, woman, and child to see. He wants no stone unturned, no one protected, and has said repeatedly that if elected he would, at last, reveal to the people just how bad things are in Springfield…and, by extension, Chicago.

We don’t know how to put into words the WHY, regarding what kept us from getting involved in an Andrzejewski campaign. In retrospect, he is exactly the sort of person we want in government. If he wins the GOP primary on Tuesday, we plan on campaigning for him, every day, for Governor. We will go all-in for Andrzejewski…to make up for not doing anything for him in the primaries.

It’s just that we never thought Illinois would elect another Governor with a hard to spell and pronounce last name, after just booting Rod Blagojevich. So, we dismissed Andrzejewski outright, when we shouldn’t have. We also, to be honest, thought the guy was JUST TOO DAMN NICE to ever win. With a lot on our plates, we didn’t feel like sinking our hearts into the campaign of someone we like very much, who was not going to win. On a personal level, it’s hard to weather disappointments like that repeatedly. The Clinton campaign, then Palin’s bid for VP, took a lot out of us.

We also didn’t want to commit to any races in Illinois for the simple fact that living here, and getting involved in any of the races, means putting ourselves even more on the line than we already do, because local races stir local passions, and we didn’t want to make all sorts of new enemies so close to home. It was our intention to observe the goings-on here in Illinois, but not be an active participant in them, the way we chose to do with the Massachusetts Senate race.

That was a good decision for us at the time, but we’ve changed our minds about things in the last few days.

For starters, we can’t state enough how much the support we’ve received from all of you has encouraged us, and in some ways even altered the courses of our lives. In doing the Breitbart and Andrea Shae King interviews last week, so many calls and emails told us our strategic insights and focus on elections mattered a great deal to them…and they let us know they wanted us to work harder, put out more action items, and directly involve ourselves in more campaigns where we side with a good, patriotic, fiscally responsible American running against someone we don’t trust in office.

That person, our candidate, can be from either party…and maybe in the future, that person will be from no party at all.

Something is happening to us that we didn’t expect, and it’s happening faster than we could have ever believed.

We are really and truly starting to look at the candidates themselves, for the first time ever, and not the letter that falls after their names or the red or blue bunting their campaigns are decorated in. We can like, support, and work our hearts for good Democrats when we see them. If we ever see them again. We can, also, work hard for good Republicans…like Sarah Palin…Michelle Bachmann…Scott Brown…and Adam Adrzejewski (have to check how to spell that every time we try to type it, but Adam’s worth it).

We should have been rooting for, and revving people up to get behind, Adrzejewski a year ago. We should have, after meeting him for the first time, come straight back to Buzzquarters and told all of you to get off your butts and do whatever you could to build buzz for this guy…because he is not only a kind, polite, and wonderful man, but he’s also gutsy enough to take on the institutionalized corruption in this state…making him the only candidate running who’d ever do anything like that.

Adrzejewski is the real deal. If he does not win the primary tomorrow, it will be a great loss for this state. We will very much regret not doing anything for him in the primaries…but swear that the next time he runs, for anything, we will be there for him in spades, because we have come to see clearly that he’s just who we need in office. To be honest, we need a whole slew of future candidates like him. Even if we’ll never be able to spell his name without having to check back if we came anywhere even close to being correct.

We have the same regret that we didn’t back David Hoffman for the Democrat primary. Hoffman, like Adrzejewski is a very good man. He, too, is polite, smart, engaging, respectful, and wicked smart. We know people working for his campaign, and they’ve always reported back that, as a candidate, he treats his staff well, listens to voters, and “is the real deal”.

We regret not giving Hoffman our time. We were convinced Giannoulias and the Chicago machine had everything all sewn up. If Hoffman scores an upset and beats Giannoulias, we’ll think about campaigning for him for the Senate, depending on whom the Republicans end up with. If it’s Mark Kirk on the GOP side, versus Hoffman, we’re going to back Hoffman. Kirk’s Cap & Tax vote, in our mind, makes him ineligible for serving in the Senate, permanently. It was such a poor decision, such proof of bad judgment, it’s as if we saw Kirk drunk driving down the highway right before coming to us asking to be hired to drive a school bus. We just don’t trust this man with a vote in the Senate, not after the decision he made on Cap & Tax.

If it’s indeed Giannoulias versus Kirk, as seems likely tomorrow, then Kirk is the better choice. It will indeed be hold-your-nose to vote time on this one. As poor of a Senator as Kirk will be, he is still not scion of the mob banking Giannoulias family.

Case closed, there.

We can’t ever campaign FOR Kirk, but we believe we’ll feel compelled to rally people AGAINST Giannoulias. If Kirk wins, we hope against hope he does not end up in the Olympia Snow, Susan Collins, Arlen Specter niche of the Republican party, the way we feel he’s destined. Perhaps all the anger directed against him for his Cap & Tax vote sank in, and he’s changed his tune. Possibly to something from ABBA. We wish Republicans picked better people to run in Illinois, because the voters deserve better than Kirk.

In the future, we feel the need to make sure we do everything possible for good people like Adam Adrzejewski and David Hoffman early in the process, so that voters DO get to have better candidates than Kirk, Giannoulias, or other terrible choices like Rosanna Pulido (whom the GOP ran for Rahm Emanuel’s vacated Congressional seat last year).

We need to stop letting “he or she can’t win” keep us from generating that buzz for people we believe in. We need to use our time, energy, and passion for people we want to see in office, regardless of party, and without factoring in hypothetical odds of their success.

The best candidate, in every race, period should get our attention.

And, logically, we really should involve ourselves more here in Illinois, since we have access to so much more information, and the candidates themselves, here in Chicago. From there, we should center our focus always on the Midwest, and then nationally on races where we have personal connections through HillBuzz.

This way, we are making the absolute most of all resources, and getting as much inside scoop as possible to strategize, organize, and write about these races for maximum impact.

We hope you chime in on good candidates you see on the horizon more often, so if someone’s not on our radar, we can take a good look at that person, regardless of party, and see if he or she is worth putting energy into.

If we keep mobilizing people to get behind good candidates who want to take down the corruption and radicalism in our system, and if we can encourage others out there to do that too, together we believe we can really start to make a difference.

We dropped the ball with Adrzejewski and Hoffman, but don’t intend to do that again in the future.

We can’t change the last few months, but we can learn from them and direct our energies better in the years ahead.