His real name is Glendal, one of those colloquial variations that sprout from time to time amid the coal mines, oil fields and timber stands of deep southern Illinois. Some of his confidants there still call him that, perhaps to underscore their affection, perhaps to remind him not to forget a place forgotten by many.
The rest of Illinois knows him as Glenn Poshard, Democratic nominee for governor, who is trying to position himself as a regular guy and political moderate–the type of no-sharp-edges candidate who often ends up in the governor’s mansion.
But as he runs against Republican George Ryan, at least part of Poshard’s struggle is trying to reconcile the something-for-everybody candidate Glenn with the more complex Glendal of his roots: the former farm boy and history teacher, the devout Baptist who meditates annually in a Trappist monastery, the poet, the rousing stump speaker who agonizes over the moral implications of everything from fundraising to flag burning.
“Glenn?”
“Yes?”
“It’s God. . . . What’s the problem?”
“The problem is I’m nearly 45 years old and I’m still filled with questions about purpose and meaning and who you are . . .”
So begins a meditation that first-term Congressman Poshard wrote and read aloud on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives in 1990 to explain how he came to oppose a constitutional flag-burning amendment. When the issue again arose in 1995, Poshard had the same dialogue read into the Congressional Record.
The dialogue goes on to say that God gave man freedom to choose “because it is only in your freedom that you can truly learn to love.”
Over his decade in Congress, Poshard has publicly discussed his faith in the most explicit terms, turning to the Bible for guidance on abortion, welfare reform and more. He co-founded the Institute on Faith and Politics, meeting with a group of elected officials, congressional staff and clergy nearly every working week since 1991 to talk about how religious belief fits into public life.
But far from touting his faith during this gubernatorial campaign, Poshard has hardly given it more than passing mention. And, though his faith-based stands against abortion and the extension of homosexual rights cost him crucial support in his own party and put him on the defensive from the moment the campaign began, Poshard has hesitated to make overtures to fellow believers who might help him out this fall.
On a political level, the decision reflects Poshard’s calculations about how a religious message might play in Chicago and its suburbs, relatively unfamiliar territory for the Downstate native.
On a deeper level, it reveals his ambivalence about how his faith–which is not ambivalent–should play out in his public life.
“I don’t wear it on my sleeve, but I don’t back away from it,” Poshard said. The death of a sister in a traffic accident and the death of his cousin, who also was Poshard’s best friend, in Vietnam were turning points for him.
“I struggle with how you give Caesar what is Caesar’s, and give the Lord what is the Lord’s. I struggle with it every day.”
Those who know Poshard say that his piety is no act.
“It’s absolutely central for Glenn, more so than the vast majority of members (of Congress) that I know,” said Rev. Doug Tanner, a Methodist minister who helped Poshard create the Institute on Faith and Politics after meeting him at a Washington dinner party. “What first made me perk up was hearing this guy, who had come from that fundamentalist Baptist background, talk about reading (Catholic monk and theologian Thomas) Merton.”
But that faith might not play so well in Illinois, where voters overwhelmingly say they go to church, but don’t want to hear religion from their politicians.
In a Tribune poll of 755 registered Illinois voters taken in August, 59 percent of the respondents said they would not like to see officials decide issues based on religion. Only 19 percent said they would like to see more officials make their decisions based on religion.
The response was strongest in Chicago and its suburbs, where 69 percent of the respondents did not want to see officials base their decision on religion. By contrast, the southern Illinois region that sent Poshard to Congress split nearly evenly on the question.
Moreover, there is no guarantee that his strong religious beliefs would bring Poshard any built-in voting bloc. In recent years the Christian Coalition has consistently graded Poshard at less than 40 percent on his votes in Congress, where his liberal economics put him at odds with other social conservatives.
It is all part of the difficulty of trying to become the first Democratic governor elected from southern Illinois in nearly 170 years.
Poshard, 52, a five-term congressman from Downstate Marion, found himself in this position after a most improbable journey.
His Washington profile is low and local. In 10 years, Roll Call, the twice-weekly, irreverent Capitol Hill newspaper, twice selected him for its “Obscure Caucus,” a listing of those with a penchant for avoiding publicity-generating issues and focusing on intensely local projects.
His voting record closely follows his district’s interests. He voted against the Clean Air Act because its standards gutted an estimated 20,000 jobs in his district by making it nearly impossible for industry to use high-sulfur Illinois coal. Although he continued to fight clean air regulations after the Clean Air Act passed, environmental advocates say he is reasonably supportive on matters that do not conflict with the interests of the coal industry.
He earned a 63 percent rating from the League of Conservation Voters last year, ahead of the 47 percent average for House members but just below the 69 percent average for Democrats.
“Overall, he has outperformed the average in the House,” said Lisa Wode, a spokeswoman for the League of Conservation Voters. “He certainly votes with the environmental community more often than not.”
Among the Illinois congressional delegation, Republicans as well as Democrats describe him as sincere, hard-working and high in personal integrity.
“He’d be on my top 10 list for people I admire on honesty, integrity and hard work,” said U.S. Rep. Ray LaHood, (R-Ill.), a second-term Peoria Republican who was a longtime aide to U.S. Rep. Bob Michel. “That counts for everything around here: honesty, hard work and integrity.”
Poshard is fiscally conservative, pro-union. He voted for welfare reform in 1996 and opposed NAFTA. He supported increasing the minimum wage and opposes allowing companies to offer their employees compensatory time instead of overtime pay.
Big unions, including the AFL-CIO and United Mine Workers of America, are strong supporters, but the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay and lesbian political organization, gave him a zero for his voting record on gay and lesbian issues. He supports family and medical leave, expansion of day care and child care and the Equal Rights Amendment, but the National Organization for Women scorns him for his stance opposing abortion, though he supports exceptions in the case of rape or incest.
He’s reluctant on gun control but a strong advocate for government involvement in economic development.
The National Journal, which tracks congressional voting records on about 30 bills yearly, shows Poshard in the middle of the road on social issues and foreign policy and increasingly liberal on economic issues.
Last year, for example, Poshard’s voting record on economic bills was more liberal than 85 percent of House members, according to the National Journal ratings; more liberal than 50 percent on social issues and more liberal than 59 percent of the House on foreign policy.
He is comfortable financially. His tax returns show he and his wife, Jo, a 3rd-grade teacher, have an adjusted gross income of about $150,000 a year, including his yearly congressional salary of $136,673. His financial disclosure statement shows he holds assets– many of which are annuities– worth $342,000 to $830,000.
But he runs a tight congressional office, having returned about $1.5 million in office expenses to the U.S. Treasury over his decade of service, and for most of his time in Congress, he has slept in his D.C. office rather than renting an apartment.
For 10 years Poshard has refused campaign contributions from political action committees and corporations and limited individual donations to $2,000, a limit he increased to $4,000 for the gubernatorial campaign. He also limits contributions from other political candidates to $50,000.
“The question for me was, if I decided 10 years ago it was the right thing to do for running for Congress, then how could I not think it was the right thing to do for running for governor?” Poshard asked. He said accepting the money early in his congressional career created “a storm going on in my gut” when he would prepare to vote on an issue important to a contributor. “Why would you want to invite that war? It’s just too much.”
He has run into choppy ethical waters on that issue: During the primary campaign, Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, with Poshard at his side, asked lawmakers to help Poshard financially, and got $175,000 for the gubernatorial candidate.
In addition, the AFL-CIO spent $100,000 on radio commercials for Poshard during the primary but skirted Poshard’s limits by paying directly for the ads rather than funneling the money to the campaign, a strategy that continues in the general election campaign.
Just as his faith poses a challenge and advantage to Poshard, his roots also present a few difficulties.
His congressional district stretches over most of the eastern half of southern Illinois and geographically is one of the largest districts east of the Mississippi. Its median per capita income is $11,333 and six counties in Poshard’s home turf have poverty rates of 20 percent or above. He has called the area “Appalachia.”
Poshard was born in the heart of that district, 300 miles south of Chicago, in a two-room farmhouse. He shared the bedroom with his brother, sister and parents. Until he was about 7 years old, the house had no electricity or running water.
At 17, he enlisted in the U.S. Army and served in Korea, where he volunteered at an orphanage for children of American soldiers and Korean women.
The experience prompted him to become a teacher and when he returned home, Poshard enrolled at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, where he would receive bachelor’s, master’s and finally a PhD in education. He married, had two children, taught and coached in high school; divorced, remarried, and worked as an educational administrator–always remaining active in politics.
Poshard made his first run for office in 1982, when he sought a state Senate seat but lost. When the senator died two years later, Poshard was chosen as his replacement. He served until 1988, when he ran for Congress, promising to leave after five terms.
But the philosophies forged through those experiences, philosophies that make him so popular in remote southern Illinois towns such as Bone Gap, may not sit well with voters in places like Buffalo Grove.
And, by establishing a predominantly conservative record, Poshard may have painted himself into a corner. If he changes his views to appeal to a broader audience–as he did nearly two years ago when he changed his mind on a federal assault weapons ban–he’s criticized for flip-flopping. If he stays loyal to his views, he is portrayed as too conservative. It’s something of a lose-lose situation.
But he disagrees.
“That is absolutely ludicrous,” he said, adding that on guns and abortion–the two issues on which he takes the most heat–he voted with half of the political leadership in the Chicago region and central Illinois. “Are we saying that because of a person’s personal views on a couple of issues that may be peculiar to their faith or their region that disqualifies them for leadership? We can’t say those things. My views fall in the broad middle ground, where most people’s do, except on a couple of issues.”
Beyond that, Poshard’s effort at campaign finance reform has handcuffed him.
The disparity between Poshard’s and Ryan’s campaign coffers has led to a Poshard campaign that at times looks to be in disarray, on its heels, or allowing itself to be defined by opponent Ryan.
Poshard can’t afford many TV spots. When he is on the road, he more often than not shows up accompanied by his driver, Ed Beltran–and no one else. No one to tug on Poshard’s sleeve and advise against placing his foot in his mouth. No one to tell the former teacher to stop talking.
Perhaps because of that, the lean campaign has made its share of missteps. By early August, Poshard fired two spokesmen after only two months on the job.
In July, Poshard apologized for one of those staffer’s comments, that doctors opposed to homosexuality should not be forced to treat homosexuals. The same month, Poshard was forced to correct publicly another staffer’s comment that U.S. Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, a homosexual, offered to visit Illinois and campaign for Poshard but that Poshard had refused. Frank never made the offer.
In August, Poshard announced a $410 million education program, a priority in his campaign, but the announcement was overshadowed by his statement that he would support local school districts that wanted to reinstate corporal punishment, four years after the state banned spanking in schools.
He conceded that the campaign “had some problems, unquestionably,” but that those problems are solved and the effort is chugging along .
“Ninety percent of our campaign is run below the radar screen,” he said. “We don’t have the money to be up on television all the time. “If you’re up on TV all the time and you’ve got millions of dollars, then somehow the campaign is going well.
” The public has been led to believe that they’ve got to see you on the TV all the time for a campaign to be effective. I’m not sure that’s true.
“We’re doing what we’ve always done,” he added, his voice tired and hoarse, “and we’ve been pretty successful with it to this point in time. So, I don’t want to desert it because it works.”
