Even with a scorecard, you can’t tell these players apart.
Dissect their records. Track their votes. Scour their position papers.
Go ahead, it will be no easier to tell the Democrat from the Republican in this year’s race for governor. Political ideology is dead in Illinois, and Glenn Poshard and George Ryan killed it.
For the record, Poshard is the Democrat who wants to be governor; Ryan, the Republican. Both men defy political archetypes, and that means many Illinois voters will be forced to choose without feeling entirely comfortable with that choice.
Voters used to be able to tell politicians apart in the dark. Yell out “New Deal,” and the one who shouted back “opportunity” was the Democrat and the one who cried “socialism” was the Republican. But myriad factors have helped blur the line in Illinois and elsewhere.
Population shifts, an expanding middle class, even crime rates have played a role. In the Poshard-Ryan match-up, geography and style also contribute. Poshard is the product of Downstate conservatism. Ryan has rural roots of his own, but his focus on getting the job done has made him comfortable reaching toward the left for help.
In the end, the hot-button issues–abortion, gun control, gay-rights and taxing and spending–that usually allow people to separate the acceptable from the unbearable when they enter the voting booth now provide little guidance.
What is a collar-county conservative to do when both candidates oppose abortion rights? How does a lakefront liberal cope with a Democrat who voted against most forms of gun control? How does either choose between a Republican who would spend millions of tax dollars on a massive public works project to help a poor, largely African-American region and a Democrat who won’t?
To be sure, voters are used to turning on their televisions and hearing a political advertisement charging that some candidate voted to defile the environment just to help Big Business. But those voters almost always could count on it being a tree-hugging Democrat blasting a pro-business Republican. Not this year.
That’s the script of a Ryan ad.
There are still ideological distinctions on the November ballot–the U.S. Senate race between Democratic U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun and Republican Peter Fitzgerald is a rich example. But none of the winners in other contests will have as much direct influence over any of these volatile issues as the next governor of Illinois.
Most voters end up backing candidates who do not share their views on all issues. This is an off-the-rack process, after all, and not conducive to custom fits. But rarer is the race where traditional labels mean so little.
Activist groups–from abortion to guns to gay rights–normally gravitate toward one party or the other, but they are pitching fits this year over where to put their money and volunteers.
Both Poshard and Ryan oppose abortion rights.
That clearly frustrates abortion-rights supporters. For the first time since the Supreme Court upheld a woman’s right to abortion in 1973, they have no voice in the governor’s race.
But while opponents of abortion rights should be gleeful, smiles are in short supply. Many still don’t know whom to back.
Abortion foes feel a kinship with the Republican Party, but some activists said they are still angry with Ryan for recruiting a running mate who supports abortion rights in an effort to deflect criticism on the issue.
Poshard would appear a safe harbor for Ryan defectors. But some abortion-rights foes fret because Poshard keeps reassuring fellow Democrats that, while he remains personally opposed to abortion, he would not curb access to the procedure.
Gun-control advocates face a similar quandary.
This used to be a liberals-only club, and the activists’ natural inclination was to the Democratic Party. But as violence, drugs and gangs migrated to the right-leaning suburbs and countryside, the club’s enrollment morphed.
“The issue has evolved to the extent that it’s crossed party lines,” said Dan Kotowski of the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence.
And yet, gun-control activists are slow to take sides in this race.
Poshard spent his 10 years in Congress voting down gun-control bills, which suited the 2nd Amendment-loving folks in his conservative Downstate district. But realizing that his views would not play in Chicago, Poshard went to a hospital’s emergency room and announced that, having witnessed the carnage wrought by guns, he could now support some limits on guns.
Ryan also is a gun-control convert–he first backed such measures when he sought statewide office in 1989. But, like Poshard, he continues to pay homage to his rural roots by singing the praises of the 2nd Amendment and pushing for tougher penalties for gun-related crimes, a tact favored by the National Rifle Association.
For a moment early in the campaign, Poshard and Ryan seemed to settle into familiar ideological roles. The issue was taxes.
Ryan took a no-tax pledge. He said he could find extra money for public schools and to help lower local property-tax rates without raising the state income tax–something Gov. Jim Edgar, a fellow Republican, said could not be done.
Poshard, though, backed the tax increase as long as it was tied to helping schools.
A good old partisan fight over taxes. It was as familiar and comfortable as Grandma’s lap. Then Poshard did an about-face.
Poshard still favors raising taxes on businesses. But he said recent actions by the General Assembly and a huge budget surplus now made a tax increase for the average resident unnecessary–even though those factors were well-known when Poshard first announced his support for a tax increase.
Poshard and Ryan are just as ideologically impaired on the issue of spending.
Ryan said the state should pay $20 million for land for a third airport south of Chicago, even though the prospects of it ever being built are in doubt.
The proposed airport is popular with many south of the city who view it as the right engine to jump-start the region’s economy. Democratic leaders Jesse Jackson and his son, U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., are among its biggest backers.
Poshard opposed the public works project, citing the lack of support for it from the private sector, particularly the major airlines. Though he has since said he is willing to at least study the idea, Democratic mayors from around that region had already jumped on Ryan’s bandwagon.
The gay community is another group that usually has no problem picking a candidate. How hard is it to choose between Republican conservatives who commonly denounce you as a sinner and Democrats who beg your vote?
But the gay community and its allies in the Democratic Party are in an uproar over Poshard.
They denounced Poshard as “anti-gay” based on his voting record and his resistance to meeting with them. Rep. Larry McKeon (D-Chicago), the only openly gay lawmaker in the General Assembly, announced that he could not support Poshard and predicted that other liberal-minded Democrats would bolt–some to Ryan. Last week, gay-rights advocates released an open letter asking Democratic leaders to distance themselves from Poshard.
Ryan is as conservative on gay issues as Poshard. But he banned discrimination against gays in the secretary of state’s office on his own–an unusual move for a Republican–and appointed a liaison to the gay community.
And while Poshard skipped the Gay Pride Parade in Chicago, Ryan’s supporters not only marched but carried a banner denouncing three other politicians for not doing more for gays.
The three, tagged on the sign as “100 percent anti-gay,” included two national leaders in Ryan’s own Republican Party–Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and House Speaker Newt Gingrich. The third was a Democrat: Glenn Poshard.
