The governor’s race

Nearly a dozen Democratic, Republican and Green Party candidates have lined up in a contest for state government’s highest office

by Dave McKinney

After Barack Obama became president, ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich allegedly considered appointing himself to Obama’s vacated Senate seat, partly out of frustration at being “stuck” as Illinois’ chief
executive.

Arguably, Blagojevich might have been onto something when his ill-fated political brainstorming was memorialized on a federal wiretap. There truly is a certain amount of logic in not wanting to be governor of Illinois right now.

State government’s $12 billion pit of red ink continues to deepen, heightening the chance the next governor will wear the collar for a tax hike. One out of every 10 working-age adults here is out of a job. Foreclosures are soaring. And nearly three out of four Illinoisans believe the state is headed in the wrong direction.

Undoubtedly, that daunting list of troubles will play a role in deciding the February 2 primary elections, where nearly a dozen Republican, Democratic and Green Party candidates have lined up for state government’s highest office. But Blagojevich and the huge stink he left behind in Springfield is the true wild card in this historic campaign season.

Not since 1928, before the Great Depression, have Illinois voters been confronted with elections for governor and U.S. senator simultaneously without a duly elected incumbent from which to choose for either office.

Blagojevich is a persistent theme in the Democratic gubernatorial primary. Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn, who took over for Blagojevich after his January ouster, has faced a barrage of attacks from Democratic rival Dan Hynes, the three-term comptroller who has called Quinn Blagojevich’s “chief cheerleader.”

For his part, Quinn contends that voters desperately want to forget the Blagojevich saga and instead want someone to turn around the state’s economy and make state government solvent again.

“Frankly, voters see Rod Blagojevich in a rear-view mirror. Politicians may still want to bring up Rod Blagojevich, but the voters don’t,” Quinn told Illinois Issues in an interview. “They see me as having accomplished a stable transition from the chaotic, disgraceful situation back in December and January to the situation where we have great challenges on the budget and economy. They have a governor they have confidence in, who’s an honest person and runs an honest government.”

On the Republican side, Blagojevich’s collapse has created a vacuum that has seven candidates vying for the party’s nomination for governor. The last time a Republican gubernatorial primary had more entrants was 1936, when eight candidates were on the ballot.

The lineup appears formidable. Sen. Bill Brady and Sen. Kirk Dillard are in the mix, as are former state GOP chief Andy McKenna, DuPage County Board Chairman Bob Schillerstrom, political consultant Dan Proft, businessman Adam Andrzejewski and former Attorney General Jim Ryan, who lost the 2002 gubernatorial election to Blagojevich.

“The corruption issues and general incompetence of the Blagojevich administration give us as Republicans a great opportunity to come in and say there’s a different way of doing this,” Schillerstrom says.

The respected Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan political newsletter based in Washington, D.C., that monitors campaigns across the country, has characterized the Illinois governor’s race in 2010 only leaning Democratic, not solidly in Democratic control — a sobering assessment given how blue a state Illinois was in 2008 during Obama’s historic presidential ascent.

“It’s Blagojevich baggage,” says Jennifer Thomas, an analyst with the newsletter who monitors races for governor and U.S. Senate. “If that had not happened, we would not be having this conversation. I really think that Republicans at least sense that there is a wish among voters to do things very, very differently.”

Fairly or not, no one has had to atone more for Blagojevich’s sins than Quinn, the impeached ex-governor’s two-time running mate. As recently as 2006, when both Blagojevich and Quinn last appeared on the ballot together, Quinn described Blagojevich as someone who has “always been a person who’s honest and one of integrity.”

“I stood up on many, many occasions to speak out and criticize the abusive budget practices and the mismanagement of state government that we were experiencing under Rod Blagojevich. Pat Quinn stood silent,” says Hynes, whose first serious tangle with Blagojevich came in 2005 with a refusal to pay for undeliverable flu vaccines Blagojevich ordered.

“He was basically a partner of Rod Blagojevich’s throughout the first term,” Hynes told Illinois Issues, referring to Quinn. “Once they were safely re-elected, then yes, he started speaking out on things. But it showed, when it was really more difficult to do so, one of us showed leadership, and the other did not.”

But Quinn insists he broke with Blagojevich early and often. A Blagojevich emissary threatened him with “political divorce” in 2004 for offering a more aggressive plan to clean up the scandal-ridden Illinois State Toll Highway Authority than what Blagojevich then had on the table, Quinn says.

In 2007, Quinn opposed Blagojevich’s failed gross receipts tax. A year later, to underscore his disgust with Blagojevich, Quinn launched an initiative to change the Illinois Constitution to allow voters to recall corrupt or inept governors. With Blagojevich working against the plan behind the scenes, the idea stalled in the state Senate but passed in 2009 and will go before voters for final approval in November.

Besides recall, Quinn says he has taken steps to improve the state’s ethics climate by approving caps on campaign contributions, rewriting the Illinois Freedom of Information Act and dumping most of the Blagojevich-appointed University of Illinois board of trustees after an admissions scandal.

The governor faced criticism from Hynes, Republicans and others for not embracing all of the ethics recommendations of his Illinois Reform Commission, led by former federal prosecutor Patrick Collins. The governor and his task force clashed over caps on the political funds controlled by legislative leaders, a reform that ultimately wound up on the cutting-room floor.

“Most of their ideas, not all of them, were enacted into law,” Quinn says.

The governor also has been hit for failing to deliver on his immediate pledge upon taking office to “fumigate” state government after Blagojevich’s departure. While the new governor did can some senior Blagojevich aides, the Chicago Sun-Times reported in November that at least 70 Blagojevich hires whose personnel records had been subpoenaed by federal prosecutors remain in the Quinn administration.

“Ninety-nine percent of the people running state government right now are the same people who were running it under Rod Blagojevich,” Hynes says. “Sixteen hundred people hired by Blagojevich making over $70,000, Pat Quinn refuses to scrutinize those positions and eliminate half of them and save $100 million, which is what I think we need to do.”

Quinn, however, says he doesn’t intend to fire those Blagojevich holdovers after getting a request from U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s office “not to do anything that might interfere with the investigation” into hiring-related abuses under Blagojevich.

On other fronts, the governor continues to push for an income tax increase. He proposed raising the income tax rate from 3 to 4.5 percent and sought to raise the personal exemption, so taxpayers earning $60,900 annually would end up paying more while those under that threshold would pay less. A similar plan died in the House. Another version with a higher tax increase, which Quinn also supported, passed the Senate and is awaiting a House vote.

By contrast, Hynes has called for an income tax increase for those earning more than $200,000 annually and has hit Quinn in campaign commercials, alleging his tax plan would affect the middle class.

Quinn champions the passage of two capital construction bills that eventually will result in $33 billion in spending on schools, roads and other bricks-and-mortar projects. The last major capital program occurred under former Gov. George Ryan. While Quinn notes the “Herculean effort” involved in getting that passed, Hynes has condemned the governor for not signing the borrowing plans quickly enough and getting construction money out the door to be used during last summer’s construction season.

“We’re losing jobs, and his one claim to fame, the capital bill, was delayed because of his own inconsistency and indecisiveness in signing the bill and getting it implemented in time for the construction season,” Hynes says.

Despite any naysaying from critics, Quinn believes he has had a productive 12 months.

“Since I’ve been governor, we’ve accomplished a great deal in a relatively short period of time, especially with integrity,” Quinn says.

Hynes wants to “demonize me, and it ain’t working. I can tell you that,” Quinn says. “He’s spent $2 million on carpet-bombing me with negative commercials. It ain’t working. My view is he who slings mud loses ground, so he’s not getting anywhere with this. It’s unhelpful to the people of Illinois. But if that’s the way he wants to run his campaign, so be it.”

Quinn held an early lead over Hynes in a mid-October poll taken by Southern Illinois University’s Paul Simon Public Policy Institute. The survey of 800 people found nearly 34 percent of those who planned to vote in the Democratic primary supported Quinn, compared with just under 17 percent for Hynes.

Green Party candidate Rich Whitney of Carbondale, who received 10.5 percent of the vote in 2006, is uncontested.

On the Republican side, the primary race is less defined, largely because of the last-minute entry of two-term Attorney General Jim Ryan, Blagojevich’s vanquished 2002 Republican opponent.

Unlike in the past two gubernatorial elections, Republicans are energized this time around. They have the Blagojevich scandal and his summer trial with which to work. And the party sees how Obama’s sliding popularity has boosted the fortunes of other Republican candidates for governor, like in Virginia and New Jersey where Democratic incumbents were defeated.

It’s difficult to say who is ahead of the pack among Republicans in Illinois. A late-October poll by Rasmussen Reports identified Ryan as the leader in name recognition among declared GOP gubernatorial candidates, with 16 percent of voters surveyed holding a favorable opinion of him.

Ryan faces two serious blemishes that threaten his candidacy. In November, after a DuPage County jury sentenced Brian Dugan to death for the 1983 murder of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico, Ryan issued an apology for refusing to prosecute him while he had been DuPage’s state’s attorney. Instead, Ryan sent two innocent men — Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez — to death row for the Naperville girl’s murder. As recently as 2002, Ryan demonstrated no regret for those actions.

Ryan also has faced scrutiny for his relationship with college buddy Stuart Levine, Ryan’s former finance director who helped raise $500,000 for the former attorney general’s 2002 gubernatorial campaign.

Levine pleaded guilty to federal fraud and money-laundering charges for scheming to shake down companies that wanted business from the Teachers’ Retirement System or the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board, state boards on which Levine served.

As part of his plea agreement, Levine admitted to a 2004 scheme to squeeze an investment firm for a $1.5 million contribution to Blagojevich in exchange for $220 million in business from the pension system.

Ryan, the only major gubernatorial candidate to refuse an interview request from Illinois Issues, has said he had no knowledge of Levine’s lawlessness but has appeared agitated when asked about the relationship by reporters.

“Jim knows regardless of what he said, no one will believe it. The perception of Stu Levine and Jim Ryan is something that he can’t overcome, and it really gets to him,” says Brady, the Bloomington Republican running for governor. “You know what the Democrats will do to him on that.”

Before Ryan’s entry, Brady — the only downstater in the seven-way GOP primary field — stood atop the SIU poll, with backing from 10 percent of those surveyed. With an estimated 50 percent of the Republican vote downstate, Brady could benefit from having four of the seven gubernatorial candidates from DuPage County, carving up that GOP-heavy enclave of suburban Chicago while he lays claim to downstate.

But Brady’s colleague in the state Senate, Kirk Dillard, does not buy into that thinking. A state senator since 1993, Dillard goes into the primary with backing from the GOP’s beloved former governor, Jim Edgar, who once employed Dillard as his chief of staff.

“I’m a statewide and not just a DuPage County candidate. The endorsement of former Gov. Edgar helps me in every corner of the Land of Lincoln,” says Dillard, who ruffled feathers in his party for appearing in an Obama campaign commercial during the presidential primary season.

Others, such as Proft, are trying to get a populist message out to GOP voters that builds on the Democratic fatigue that could be being felt after nearly eight years of total Democratic dominance in Springfield.

“The fix is in for the nine Chicago Democrats who run this state and their political functionaries, and the fix is against the people who play by the rules of this state, who finance state government and who receive very little back in services or benefits,” Proft says.

Casting a similar theme, Andrzejewski says his lack of background in government is a strong point among conservative Republican voters fed up with Blagojevich and insider dealing at the Capitol.

“Nine months ago, my biggest weakness was I didn’t have Illinois political experience. But now, it’s the great advantage because Illinois political experience simply means political baggage. My opponents are weighted down by it, and I’m free of it,” the Hinsdale activist says.

But in this race, Blagojevich’s long shadow can’t be avoided. McKenna, the former state GOP chief, has drawn national attention for his short campaign film mocking the ex-governor’s perfect coiffure. A Blagojevich-esque toupee was digitally affixed atop the Capitol dome, and the piece featured truck drivers, pedestrians — even babies — all wearing Blago’s mop top.

“His hair, in many ways, is a symbol of the culture in Springfield,” McKenna says. “The leadership there too often has been self-serving and put its own personal interests before the interests of the people. Those elements all were very much a part of the Blagojevich administration.”

A commercial about Blagojevich’s hair, as frivolous as it may be to some worried about state government shutting down, touches on something that could be a key to the governorship in 2010, McKenna says.

“He’s a symbol of something that makes people very angry.”

Dave McKinney is the Springfield bureau chief of the Chicago Sun-Times