"Illinois is a center-right state," Brady said after a Republican fundraiser at the Union League Club this afternoon. "I am a center-right candidate."
Brady spoke with media after U.S. Sen. John McCain visited with GOP supporters to discuss President Barack Obama's national-security policies during his first year in office.
Mark Kirk, Illinois' Republican nominee for Obama's old Senate seat, was the guest at the closed-door, $250-per-seat luncheon.
McCain, who also spoke with media, immediately faced questions about the nation's health-care debate and his support for the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, which bars gay service members from speaking openly about their sexual orientation.
He also said that Republicans are energized by the ascent of U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, a GOP candidate elected to the late Ted Kennedy's Massachusetts seat in January. Brown's victory, he said, represents part of a broader discontent among American voters.
"People all over this country are angry, are upset, are frustrated," McCain said.
Such feelings no doubt pervade Illinois as well, but Brady, for his part, did not explain how his socially and fiscally conservative positions would help him win support in Cook and its collar counties; he earned less than 5 percent of his primary support from Chicago.
His recent support for a state constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage has raised eyebrows among those who thought he might veer left as he tries to pick up support from moderate voters during the general election.
A Gallup poll shows that while the number of Illinois voters who identify themselves as conservative has grown, most of the state's electorate still leans Democratic.
To make up for his deficit in the state's more liberal areas, Brady simply said that he will continue to spend time here as he tries to attract voters outside of downstate Illinois, his stronghold.
"We're gonna camp out in Cook and the collar counties," he said.
Asked to identify specific policies that would appeal to moderates in the state, Brady kept circling back to what many political observers believe are the primary issues during this election year.
"It boils down to the economy, jobs," he said.
He also faced questions about Jason Plummer, the 27-year-old Republican nominee for lieutenant governor.
Some have argued that the young politician, whose primary experience has been in a family lumber business, has tried to inflate his work under former U.S. Sen. Peter Fitzgerald and at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
Plummer was an intern in both offices, a point he omitted in at least one version of his resume.
Brady said he wasn't bothered by Plummer's youth and relative inexperience for a statewide office, even if he would be a perennial heartbeat from the governorship.
"How old was Thomas Jefferson when he wrote the Declaration of Independence?" Brady facetiously asked reporters. (The answer is 33, older than Plummer.)
But before he deals too closely with his running mate, he'll need to overcome the first challenge of the gubernatorial general election for Republicans: the standstill between him and State Sen. Kirk Dillard, notably absent from today's event.
Brady and Dillard are 406 votes apart, and they await certification from state officials regarding poll results and absentee and provisional ballots. Certain victory for either candidate is unlikely to come before March, since neither has indicated he would concede the race before then.
"We're confident, but respectful" of Dillard's desire to wait for every ballot to be counted, Brady said. "We're taking half-steps."