Ambition and fear, two driving forces of politics, swept across Illinois on Thursday within seconds of Gov. Jim Edgar officially declaring himself a lame duck.
The Republicans, happily unburdened by Edgar’s poignant farewell, quickly began lining up for campaigns from governor to state comptroller to the U.S. Senate, and stepping on those who took more than a few minutes to make a decision.
The Democrats began silently pressuring Chicago Mayor Richard Daley to act like a party leader and make some unpleasant choices about his friends and family to avert a potential political disaster in 1998.
Although Thursday’s action was public, the rest of the week’s politics, including attempts to forcibly trim the crowded Democratic gubernatorial primary field, will take place behind closed doors.
After Edgar made public his decision to not seek election or run for the U.S. Senate, the polite bipartisan thing for politicians to do was to say goodbye and offer platitudes to a man many of them never quite understood.
But not everyone was heartbroken. The two happiest politicians in the state were U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun (D-Ill.), whose troubled campaign won’t have to overcome the popular Edgar, and Secretary of State George Ryan, who finally will have his chance to run for governor.
“Yes, I’m somewhat happy and delighted that I may have an opportunity,” said Ryan, who is as popular among Republican politicians as he is among Democrats, including Daley.
“But the first thing I have to do is sit down and chat with my family,” said Ryan, of Kankakee, who has not officially announced. “Gov. Edgar called me and said, `If you’re going to do this thing, know it will change your life.’ So I will talk to my friends and family and make sure they understand what this is all about.”
Republicans and Democrats contrast Ryan’s down-to-earth demeanor and willingness to deal and compromise–he is a former Illinois House speaker with more than 30 years in politics–with Edgar’s often cool and aloof attitude toward the realities of political life.
Those close to Ryan figure it took less than two seconds for him to decide–a list of women candidates for lieutenant governor has already been worked up–but that he will wait a week to make a formal announcement while beginning to shape the rest of the ticket.
“Right now, George is the Republican man of the hour,” said House Republican Leader Lee Daniels (R-Elmhurst), who despite any statements to the contrary is not unhappy to see Edgar go.
“The nomination for governor is his for the asking. I will actively do what I can to assist him. I do not see any opposition to him,” Daniels said, dismissing any primary fight.
“George Ryan is somebody legislators on both sides could talk to, and that would be nice to have in a governor,” said a source close to state Senate President James “Pate” Philip, the Wood Dale Republican whose frosty relationship with Edgar did not improve when Edgar decided to seek an income tax increase for schools.
Edgar’s exit, like a cork removed from a hot bottle, allows Republicans to pursue deferred ambitions.
With Ryan for governor on the GOP side, the secretary of state’s office became immediately attractive to Illinois Comptroller Loleta Didrickson and DuPage County Board President Gayle Franzen.
Both said they would not shy away from a primary fight, but Ryan hoped he could mediate a dispute.
Meanwhile, with Atty. Gen. Jim Ryan moving toward a U.S. Senate campaign, the job of the state’s top lawyer became attractive to many Republicans.
Included in the mix is former U.S. Atty. Fred Foreman, now of Lake County; state Sen. Dan Cronin and Daniels, both of Elmhurst; state Rep. Robert Churchill (R-Lake Villa) and possibly former U.S. Senate candidate Al Salvi, who has sought to change his spots by publicly condemning his previous opposition to gun control.
And state Sen. Chris Lauzen (R-Aurora), one of the conservative Republican freshman class of 1993, is considering a run for comptroller, with Didrickson ready to leave the job.
About the only Republican satisfied with life as it is, is state Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka, the southwest suburban Republican who has said she wants to run for re-election.
While the Republicans were relieved that the governor they say they love is moving on, the Democrats weren’t too sure.
Edgar’s exit all but ushers in a new Democrat into the primary campaign for governor: former U.S. Atty. Jim Burns, who is seeking a general election matchup against George Ryan.
Burns supporters, including those who worked for former U.S. Sen. Alan Dixon (D-Ill.), hope that a Burns-Ryan contest would be compared with the Jim Thompson-Mike Howlett battle of 1976.
In that campaign, former U.S. Atty. James Thompson, who went on to serve a record 14 years as governor, capitalized on his image as a political corruption fighter, while the Democrat Howlett was every inch the politician’s politician.
Several influential Cook County Democrats say they would quit politics before supporting Burns, who made a career out of prosecuting members of his own party in political corruption and ghost-payrolling cases.
And many Democrats, including those on the fifth floor of City Hall where Daley works, would be expected to at least privately support George Ryan in a general election campaign.
Before Burns can get to Ryan, he must announce and then win a primary in a field that is getting crowded. And professional Democrats are already becoming frightened by the possible results.
Along with Burns, there are two officially announced candidates, Chicago lawyer John Schmidt and U.S. Rep. Glenn Poshard (D-Ill.). And former Illinois Atty. Gen. Roland Burris, the only African-American gubernatorial contender, said he will make his official announcement after Labor Day but that he is in the race to stay.
Add Burns to the mix and do the math–as House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) is doing–and the answer could be Burris winning the primary with slightly more than 25 percent of the vote.
And that, in the minds of many professional Democrats who accuse Republicans of intolerance, would be intolerable.
It would leave the Democrats to be led by Moseley-Braun and Burris, with Cook County Board President John Stroger, another African-American, campaigning for re-election in the state’s most Democratic county.
Such a black-led ticket would hurt the Democrats’ chances in the suburbs and the rest of the state, strategists say.
“I know what they’re thinking, but they’re not getting me out of this race,” said Burris last week, as he toured the Illinois State Fair.
Democratic leaders, however, seek a more balanced ticket that will improve the party’s chances to pick up what’s most important to them–state House seats in the southern suburbs and Downstate.
Senior Democrats hope to avert the problem by quickly sealing a slate of candidates and endorsing them.
So leaders are now asking Daley to step in. Chicago’s mayor, therefore, must decide whether to ask his friend John Schmidt to shelve his gubernatorial ambitions and run for attorney general.
Daley’s brother, Cook County Commissioner John Daley, has expressed interest in running for secretary of state, but that spot has to be kept open if Democrats wish to offer it to Poshard as a consolation prize.
A Daley on the state ticket could also harm the ambitions of comptroller candidate Daniel Hynes, the son of former Cook County Assessor Thomas Hynes, who is the de facto county party leader.
The Schmidt campaign, which has been trying to get Daley to become publicly involved with its effort, was dismissing any brokered ticket as a fantasy.
Daley, though, has kept his distance, and he said recently he will not make an endorsement in the gubernatorial campaign.
