From The National Review

Rush: Andrzejewski is Illinois's Scott Brown   [Stephen Spruiell]

Rush Limbaugh has thrown his support behind Adam Andrzejewski (pronounced "an-gee-EFF-skee"), a Republican candidate for governor of Illinois. (Audio here.) Tomorrow's GOP primary is crowded with challengers, and Andrzejewski has trailed former state party chairman Andy McKenna in the polls. But he has been riding a surge lately, starting with an endorsement from former Polish president and Solidarity founder Lech Walesa on Friday, and continuing with Rush's declaration that Andrzejewski might be "the Scott Brown of his contest."

"I have not heard Rush’s remarks yet — I’ve spent the day campaigning in Polish neighborhoods all over Chicago — but people I’ve talked to have said his support was strong and very clear, and I’m gratified by that," says Andrzejewski. "When I built my business, I did not hold the CEO card, I held the salesman card, and I went out in my car on nearly 60,000 sales stops. I listened to a lot of Rush over that ten-year period, and I’m deeply touched that he gave my campaign such profile and prestige today."

Andrzejewski says he hasn't had a chance to check the endorsement's impact on donations, but he says: "My personal cell phone has been bombed with calls, texts, and e-mails."

In the middle of our conversation, Andrzejewski has to pause. When he gets back on the phone, I ask him what happened. "We were pulled over by a Chicago police officer who wanted to shake my hand," he says sheepishly. I ask him if he's kidding. He says no, he's not, that this is the kind of attention he's been getting since the Walesa endorsement. (As we talk, his campaign is caravanning from a Polish diner, Staro Polska, in Chicago, to its headquarters, where Fox News is scheduled to show up with its cameras.)

"Walesa came into Chicago and issued what he said was his first endorsement ever of an American politician," says Andrzejewski. "He was very unequivocal, solid and showed real strength and humor in his remarks. He told a story from the early days of Solidarity, when nobody gave them a chance. And if you added up the tanks, guns and airplanes of the Communists, they didn’t stand a chance. He said the difference was that Solidarity's principles and values were stronger." Andrzejewski says the same logic applies to his campaign to retake Springfield from "the Illinois combine" — a nickname for state government which refers to the bipartisan culture of patronage and favor-trading. "He said I reminded him of a young Lech Walesa. I was touched by those remarks."

I ask him why conservatives seem to be backing him over McKenna: "Andy McKenna came into the race acting like I didn’t exist and running on all of my policies and all of my themes," he says. "He calls himself the only outsider in the race. That's a disingenuous statement at best." (McKenna was the state party chairman for five years; Andrzejewski is a newcomer to politics.) "He's no outsider, no reformer, and he had his own ethics problems as party chairman." (The state party investigated McKenna after he paid for a personal poll using party money.)

Virginia, New Jersey, Massachusetts — could Obama's Illinois be next? "I think the parallel . . . is that Republicans are winning in Democratic strongholds by healthy margins, and I expect the same in November when I’m our nominee."