The Republicans

What impression of the capital city
does Springfield want to convey?
A three-way primary contest for governor
could turn out to be a “jump ball”

by Dave McKinney
Illustrations by Mike Cramer

Two days after Thanksgiving, newly installed state GOP Chairman Lee Daniels gathered Gov. George Ryan and other top Republicans for sandwiches at the DuPage Airport. The disheveled state of the Republican ticket was the day’s topic. But the chief concern during that two-hour, high-powered summit was clearing the field for Attorney General Jim Ryan.

Some thought Lt. Gov. Corinne Wood, trailing badly in early polls on the governor’s race, might be convinced to step aside, perhaps opt for attorney general or reprise her current role. It would be the governor’s duty, as the state’s top elected Republican, to convince his protégé.

So the governor invited Wood to the Executive Mansion, along with her two key supporters, National Republican Committeeman Robert Kjellander and Greg Baise, president of the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association, both among those encouraging Wood to rethink her options.

As the governor’s chefs put the finishing touches on a lunch of beef stroganoff and pecan pie, the group gathered in the elegant dining room. There was no small talk. “Everybody knows why we’re here,” the governor told Wood between sips of his bloody mary. “You know, we met over the weekend, and we’ve got to have a unified ticket, so we decided that you should consider running for lieutenant governor with Jim Ryan.”

Hearing that message from the man who had elevated her from relative obscurity in the Illinois House prompted two defiant words from Wood. “Oh, really?” she said, struck by the governor’s use of the words “we decided” when he had vowed neutrality in the race. As the governor’s servants came and left, Wood listened, drinking occasionally from her own virgin mary. The only interruptions were the cell phone calls the governor had to take about a looming O’Hare International Airport expansion deal with Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and the impending state budget cuts.

“You could be involved with Republican politics for a long time,” Ryan told her. “We want you to make sure you know what the risks are.

If you lose this primary, it’s over. You have no future.”

The outcome of this meeting is well known. The lieutenant governor mulled it over, and by the end of the day gave the governor, in her words, “a polite ‘No, thank you.’’’ In doing so, she left intact one of the most intriguing story lines of the still-young 2002 campaign season. Wood, Jim Ryan, the two-term attorney general, and state Sen. Patrick O’Malley, the conservative firebrand from Palos Park, are locked in a political fight this state rarely sees.

The unpredictability of such a three-way race is why the GOP brass wanted the field cleared. Any number of unforeseen factors over the next 10 weeks could tilt the percentages away from the early favorite, rendering initial polls almost meaningless.

That’s why, historically, the Republican establishment settles on its candidate for governor, avoiding a cash-draining and divisive primary. But this time, strive as it might for unity, the GOP is a balkanized mess at the top of the ticket.

“I’ve never seen anything like this in my 23 years,’’ says Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka, a Republican who is seeking re-election and has endorsed Jim Ryan’s gubernatorial bid. “Anybody can win, depending on what the dynamics are at any given time.”

In fact, this campaign marks the first time two sitting constitutional officers have battled one other in a gubernatorial primary since 1976, when Secretary of State Michael Howlett defeated Gov. Dan Walker in the Democratic primary. Howlett later lost to James Thompson, triggering the GOP’s quarter-century lock on the governorship. Among Republicans, the last time two constitutional officers opposed one another was in 1928, when Secretary of State Louis Lincoln Emmerson unseated incumbent Gov. Len Small.

Furthermore, it has been 50 years since three sitting officeholders at any level last competed in a Republican gubernatorial primary. In that race, Treasurer William Stratton faced Cook County Board President William Erickson and Park Livingston, chairman of the University of Illinois board of trustees. Two other former officeholders, ex-Secretary of State Richard Yates Rowe and former U.S. Rep. James Simpson, rounded out that primary, which Stratton won on his way to two terms in the Executive Mansion.

Though all three candidates hail from Chicago’s suburbs, this year’s GOP primary campaign for governor is about anything but unity. More to the point, it poses an ideological test that threatens to fracture the Republican Party, a contest between conservatism and moderation. Yet it will give voters something they don’t always get: a real choice. Among the top issues are George Ryan’s unpopularity and broken campaign pledges, the bipartisan airport deal he forged, the party’s never-ending tug of war over abortion and the state’s worsening economy.

In early polling, Jim Ryan was the clear front-runner over Wood and O’Malley, topping out at more than 50 percent support and posting a lead of 35 percentage points over Wood in a Chicago Tribune poll taken last fall. He is well recognized because of his two terms as attorney general.

Still, Ryan says he doesn’t take his opponents lightly. “They’re both

millionaires and working hard.”

His string of personal tragedies appears to have struck a chord with voters, too. In November, he was diagnosed with his third bout of cancer in five years. A growth behind his right ear was removed and was determined to be a form of lymphoma, though less aggressive than his earlier lymphomas. His doctors say his condition is “highly treatable” and won’t limit his campaign schedule. In 1997, Ryan lost his 12-year-old daughter, Anne Marie, to an undetected noncancerous tumor at the base of her head and faced the near-death of his wife, Marie, to a heart attack. “People know of the problems I’ve had and my family has had over the years,” Ryan says. “I’m not looking for sympathy from anyone. I hope people respect me. I think I have a strong record.’’

Ryan, who is from Elmhurst, was elected attorney general in 1994 after serving three terms as DuPage County state’s attorney. In that post, he presided over much of the prosecution of Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez, who were convicted and sentenced to death for the 1983 murder of Jeanine Nicarico. Both men later were cleared of the crime, providing important fuel to Gov. Ryan’s moratorium on state executions. Jim Ryan, who supports the moratorium, was not implicated in wrongdoing. Nevertheless, the issue could haunt him politically because of questions about whether his office withheld information from the State Police in 1985 that suggested another man — Brian Dugan — had killed the girl rather than Cruz and Hernandez, who had both been sent to Death Row.

After losing a 1990 bid against Democrat Roland Burris to become the state’s top law enforcement official, Ryan was successful in his second try four years later. Not long after taking office, he established a willingness to buck powerful forces within his own party. In 1995, he blocked Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka’s plan to settle more than $40 million in bad state loans for $10 million. The state loans in question had been given to powerful Republican fundraiser William Cellini and bipartisan donor Gary Fears to develop hotels in Springfield and Collinsville in the early 1980s. But after a lengthy period of skipped loan repayments, Topinka argued the investors should be allowed to pay what she believed the hotels were really worth. Ryan halted that agreement, producing estimates by the University of Illinois that valued the hotels at closer to $20 million.

The hotels remain in operation, but the state has yet to be repaid.

In Ryan’s second term, he followed the lead of other states by joining a landmark lawsuit against the tobacco industry, winning a $9.1 billion settlement for the state that has helped fund property tax rebates and a series of public health initiatives. Ryan has faced criticism, however, for his handling of legal fees in that case. One of the outside law firms he hired was Freeborn & Peters, where Ryan pal Fred Foreman is a partner. The attorney general initially agreed to pay Freeborn & Peters and other outside lawyers representing the state 10 percent of whatever Illinois got in the lawsuit, which would have been as much as $910 million. He backed out of that agreement, though, opting instead to follow an arbitrator’s ruling that the firms be paid $121 million. The dispute over roughly $800 million in fees remains in court.

Though Ryan considers himself a conservative, some within that wing of the party distrust him. As state’s attorney, they note, he prosecuted anti-abortion demonstrators who picketed a Westmont abortion clinic. As attorney general, he signed a letter with Gov. Ryan and others supporting legislation that would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Jim Ryan also was supportive of the governor’s push to make illegal gun possession a felony. And he has been loathe to publicly condemn George Ryan for reversing campaign positions on taxes, expansion of gambling and O’Hare. Before becoming governor, George Ryan promised to hold the line on taxes but raised liquor taxes and license fees to pay for his Illinois First public works program. Candidate George Ryan opposed allowing casino gambling into Cook County but signed legislation that positioned Rosemont to become the site for a transferred riverboat license. And before, during and after becoming governor, George Ryan opposed new runways at O’Hare. Yet in early December, the expansion deal he cut with Chicago Mayor Richard Daley included a controversial southern runway that will eradicate hundreds of homes.

“Jim [Ryan] has been in office long enough to have screwed up his image as a conservative. He hasn’t been there for conservative causes of any sort,’’ says Jack Roeser, an O’Malley backer who heads the neoconservative Family Taxpayers’ Network in Carpentersville. Roeser lost the 1994 gubernatorial primary to moderate Republican Jim Edgar.

Ryan disagrees. He notes that he’s opposed to abortion in all cases except to preserve the life of the mother and favors a prohibition on public funding for abortion. He says he will oppose any tax increases as governor and will not accept campaign contributions from state employees under his control.

On other issues he hasn’t been so forthcoming. Ryan hesitated to weigh in on the O’Hare runway realignments and expansion favored by Daley and the governor. Despite his unwillingness to “interfere” in the city-state talks, Jim Ryan’s aides say the attorney general favors construction of a Peotone airport but opposes a new southern runway at O’Hare that would mean bulldozing hundreds of suburban Bensenville homes and businesses.

There are other tensions between the two Ryans. Jim Ryan nudged Gov. Ryan into lame-duck status before the governor was ready. The attorney general gave the governor an ultimatum: reveal his re-election plans or he would move to announce his own gubernatorial campaign regardless of Gov. Ryan’s choice. Earlier, Jim Ryan had said he would wait for the governor to make up his mind. Jim Ryan, who acknowledges the strain in the relationship, has of late condemned “excessive spending” under Ryan’s administration, which the attorney general says contributed to the need for $500 million in budget cuts. Though the attorney general has won endorsements from virtually every high-ranking GOP official in the state, the governor is not among them, describing himself as neutral in the primary.

Jim Ryan doubts the governor’s claim. “I haven’t asked for his endorsement, but he’s supporting Corinne Wood. He may be neutral in the sense that he hasn’t endorsed her publicly,” says Ryan, who is backed by former Govs. James Thompson and Jim Edgar.

Despite the attorney general’s high name recognition, he faces a potential problem in that he shares the same last name with a governor whose approval ratings have sunk to historic lows. When George Ryan was secretary of state, employees under his control illegally sold licenses and diverted as much as $170,000 of those bribes into his campaign account. So far, 40 people have been convicted in the federal probe, which broke only weeks before Ryan won the 1998 election for governor.

Unrelated to George Ryan, the attorney general says some voters may be unclear as to which Ryan he is, and he has polled on that question. But he doesn’t think the problem is serious enough to sway the election. “My favorables are very strong, and my job approval is high. If you just say ‘Ryan’ or ‘Jim Ryan’ and don’t say ‘attorney general,’ there might be some confusion. But if people see attorney general, they know who I am.”

Though her name is different, Wood faces a similar difficulty in being closely associated with the governor. She has had to walk a tightrope, distancing herself from his well-documented troubles without condemning his and, in effect, her leadership. When asked whether she worries that Gov. Ryan’s unpopularity could drag her down in this race, Wood says, “Absolutely not. In fact, I had nothing to do with the secretary of state’s office. I also think the reputation I’ve had has been hard-working and independent. And I’ve run my office with the highest ethical standards.”

Wood, who lives in Lake Forest, served as general counsel for the Illinois Commissioner of Banks and Trusts, later joined the Chicago law firm of Hopkins and Sutter where she practiced corporate and government law, then opened her own practice. In 1996, after serving on the Lake Forest plan commission and a senior citizens panel, she was elected to the Illinois House and served one term before being chosen by Ryan as a running mate — an incredibly rapid ascent by any standard.

Wood focused much of her legislative work on health issues, pushing a crackdown on teen smoking and an agenda for abortion rights. She also sponsored legislation that established a graduated system under which teen drivers obtain their licenses. Wood says she was chief sponsor of more bills that passed both legislative chambers and were signed into law than any other freshman House member. Clearly, that had as much to do with her ambition as the fact she was being groomed to move up and was on George Ryan’s short list of running mates after serving less than a year in office.

“With my experience as lieutenant governor, as a state representative and as someone who worked in state agencies, I think I bring the broadest base of experience to a job that demands the very best,’’ she says.

When Ryan tabbed her, vowing to make her a “full and complete partner,” most observers viewed her selection as an effort to temper his own legislative record against abortion and ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment in the early 1980s. She faced no opposition from Republicans and rode Ryan’s coattails to victory.

As lieutenant governor, Wood has been active in the environmental push to revive the Illinois River, has promoted the state’s Main Street economic development program and has supported a wide variety of breast cancer prevention efforts.

But she has not served in her new job without turbulence, particularly early on. She had to contend with an unusually high staff turnover. She has had three chiefs of staff in three years, though one left because of health problems. And some of her ex-employees complained that she is a micromanager. Relationships also were strained for a time with staffers in the governor’s office over such missteps as pre-empting Gov. Ryan’s endorsement of George W. Bush with her own. The stress, at one point, prompted Wood to say she was being victimized by a “whispering campaign.” At about the same time, Wood drew negative headlines for authorizing $20,000 in taxpayer expenses so that her office could design a new logo for use on letterhead and pamphlets. Wood later reimbursed the treasury and expressed regret for the decision.

Wood has faced other trials. She is a breast cancer survivor who underwent a 1997 mastectomy that involved the removal of her right breast. She has been cancer-free since. Wood acknowledges the possible appeal that Jim Ryan’s personal story has with voters, but she says she has her own story to tell. And while Ryan receives cancer treatments, Wood says she doesn’t intend to go easy on the attorney general in the campaign. “Clearly people will be sympathetic to someone who’s faced cancer and overcome cancer and especially sympathetic to someone facing cancer a third time.

We should have sympathy for people. At the same time, as a breast cancer survivor now for four-and-a-half years, I don’t think any reporters or nemeses have held back in criticizing what I do or stand for.”

On social issues, Wood is more moderate than her opponents. She favors broad abortion rights and supported Gov. Ryan’s 2000 veto of legislation prohibiting Medicaid-funded abortions. She has appealed to business groups like Baise’s because of her stance in favor of O’Hare expansion. And she supported the governor’s efforts to make illegal gun possession a felony and his moratorium on the death penalty. Nevertheless, she has vowed not to increase taxes and favors requiring a three-fifths vote of the General Assembly to raise taxes, a move long supported by the faction on the right of her party. But her bid to appeal to that wing of the party skidded when only weeks earlier she publicly questioned the value of no-new-tax pledges.

Wood has described herself as a “fresh face” in the Republican Party, an “outsider” and the antithesis of Springfield’s “old-boy network,” all subtle signals of how aware she is of George Ryan’s unpopularity. That theme also was contained in a round of pre-holiday commercials in December stressing that she is not an “insider.”

“I’m not part of the establishment.

I think that’s pretty clear right now.

I’m not beholden to special interests or partisan political interests. I’ve always done what’s right,’’ she says. “I am elected as lieutenant governor, so people may call me a politician. But no one has ever called me an insider. I think it’s fairly well known that leaders of the party have consistently tried to get me out of this race, so I clearly am not one of the good old boys.”

But because she has garnered the support of Baise, Kjellander, former state GOP chief Harold Byron Smith and some members of Ryan’s inner circle, Wood arguably has her share of good old boys in her camp. “I don’t understand who she’s talking about. Is Bob Kjellander a good old boy?’’ the attorney general asks.

And Wood’s implication that she hasn’t been taken seriously because she is a woman operating within the predominantly male halls of state government rubs Topinka the wrong way. “I certainly don’t consider myself one of the good old boys,’’ Topinka says. “I’m female. I’ve managed. I managed more than once on all sorts of levels. Politics in Illinois is a bloodsport. If you want to be in it and in the arena, you have to understand you vie with others.”

Nonetheless, Wood’s strategy of portraying herself as the lone female in a male-dominated gubernatorial primary has drawn support from such abortion-rights organizations as Personal PAC and has gained her a surprise endorsement from Democratic feminist Gloria Steinem, raising the potential that some Democratic women might pull Republican ballots and offer Wood a show of support not reflected in polls. Wood intends to devote some of her future advertising budget to driving home the fact that her rivals each oppose abortions in all cases except to save the life of a woman. Money appears to be no object. She has already spent close to $2 million on campaign commercials, with the most intense advertising period still months away.

“The simple fact is that Jim Ryan’s and Pat O’Malley’s position against abortion, even in cases of rape and incest, is extreme. This campaign will be won because of women. When people, men and women, know what my positions are and what I stand for, the polls will change,’’ she says.

If Corinne Wood’s pre-election math hinges on getting out women, Patrick O’Malley relies on the notion that the most driven voters in Republican primaries are conservatives, not the moderates Wood hopes to attract. In 1990, one of Gov. Edgar’s primary opponents, Steve Baer, won a little more than 30 percent of the vote. Four years later, when the conservative wing of the GOP took on Edgar again, Jack Roeser got 25 percent of the vote. O’Malley figures if he can draw that same 25 percent to 30 percent voting bloc, he can be a formidable presence in this three-way primary.

“Do I consider that a base that’s likely to be there? Yes, I do,’’ O’Malley says. “There’s a base of people out there dissatisfied with the status quo, and they’re looking for someone they’d like their candidate to be. For once, the establishment finds itself divided. You have the ‘anti-insider’ Corinne Wood with half the insiders lined up with her. Then the rest of the insiders, some of the same ones, are supporting Jim Ryan.”

O’Malley, who lives in Palos Park, was the first to declare his candidacy for governor last spring. Mild-mannered almost to the point of being stoic, he changes his posture dramatically when the subject turns to George Ryan. O’Malley has seized on the ethical lapses that occurred during Ryan’s watch in the secretary of state’s office and his broken campaign promises. And he’s attempted to clump Jim Ryan and Wood with the wounded GOP leader.

Of Jim Ryan, O’Malley says, “This is the same man who said he wouldn’t run for governor unless George Ryan decided not to. When queried further, he said Mr. Ryan had done a good job. I’d submit to you anyone who claims to be a Republican candidate who says the governor has not gone back on essential campaign pledges … it calls into question that person’s judgment.” And of Wood, O’Malley says, “She ran with the governor. She agreed with his platform. She also made the same pledges he made, and throughout her entire term as lieutenant governor, she’s not only not criticized him for some of his flip-flops, she basically has been his chief cheerleader. If she thinks she can pull the wool over the eyes of the people of Illinois, she’s in la la land.”

When O’Malley embarked on a radio advertising campaign against George Ryan last summer, urging a break from a scandal-marred tenure, the governor didn’t take it sitting down. He angrily told reporters at the State Fair where he stood on an O’Malley candidacy. “It would be the worst thing to ever happen to Illinois if he ever got elected governor of the state. He’s an ideologue that’s got tunnel vision and doesn’t understand what it takes to be governor of the state of Illinois. And I would certainly hope nobody would support him.”

O’Malley was elected to the Senate in 1992, representing a mostly blue-collar area in the southwest suburbs. He came in with four other conservative firebrand Republicans, including current U.S. Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, in a freshman class that became known as the Fab Five. O’Malley has flirted with higher office before, including Congress and lieutenant governor.

During his legislative career, the self-described millionaire attorney who chairs the Senate’s Financial Institutions Committee has opposed efforts to toughen gun-control laws, expand casino gambling or establish anti-discrimination laws for gays and lesbians. He also has supported school vouchers, a concept long favored by conservatives that would allow families to enroll their children in the public schools of their choice. O’Malley also has devised an array of new restrictions on abortion. Last spring, for example, he wanted to ensure that fetuses that survive abortion be guaranteed civil rights. Earlier in his political career, he supported efforts to ban so-called partial-birth abortion. And in one of his most controversial moves, O’Malley sponsored a resolution calling for a study to determine whether abortions played any role in the development of breast cancer.

In 1999, O’Malley resigned from the board of directors at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, objecting to revisions in its policy on abortions. The hospital now allows abortions in cases when a woman’s life is endangered, where rape or incest has occurred and where fetuses have severe defects. O’Malley balked, believing that the hospital’s standards would allow for the firing of employees who refused to assist in an abortion, and he opposed the hospital’s plan to allow minors to get abortions without a parent’s consent.

O’Malley also has been behind efforts to free parents from a state requirement that their school-aged children be vaccinated; end state subsidies for the now-closed Robbins waste incinerator; subject train engineers and rail executives to criminal charges if their trains block busy railroad crossings for extended periods; and impose curbs on short-term, high-interest lenders who make up the payday loan industry.

“He’s been there for us, right down the line on decent issues. He’s a real Reagan Republican,’’ says Roeser.

In this campaign, O’Malley has vowed not to increase taxes or fees, opposed efforts to expand O’Hare and promised to lift Gov. Ryan’s moratorium on the death penalty.

Like Wood, O’Malley has rejected overtures from GOP brass to consider dropping out of the race. In fact, the senator believes Daniels’ and Gov. Ryan’s efforts to shape the party in their image will have a ruinous impact on the GOP, and a primary can only make the party stronger. “We have risen to a point in this party in Illinois where we need to have a thorough and thoughtful discussion of who we are. We need to remind ourselves of the principles, ideals and convictions of the Republican Party. We cannot be a party that gives lip service. I vehemently disagree with Gov. Ryan and Corinne Wood who want to change the party into something else.

It would appear to me they want to turn it into the Democrat Party.”

If O’Malley is to prevail in this test of principle, his path to victory depends on Wood and Ryan splitting the GOP establishment vote, leaving him with enough support to eke out a surprise victory like conservative Al Salvi’s stunner over former Lt. Gov. Bob Kustra in the 1996 Republican U.S. Senate primary. Kustra was favored by nearly every top party leader but lost when conservatives came out to the polls in droves.

But Wood’s strategists have long held her candidacy is viable only as long as O’Malley stays in the race and siphons away conservative votes from Jim Ryan’s front-running campaign. And, Ryan is depending on the organizational strength that comes with having most of the party’s top leaders in his camp.

Yet, with so many possibilities, the most important campaign battle may be fought during the inevitable attempts to invalidate candidate nominating petition signatures. Should any of the three not survive a challenge like that, the race’s shift could be seismic and immediate.

Had Gov. Ryan’s efforts that November day at the Executive Mansion been successful in convincing Wood to stay put in her current job or run for another office, O’Malley likely would be little more than a footnote in next March’s primary. But that didn’t happen, and now the race may be, in the words of Jack Roeser, a “jump ball.”

Jim Ryan’s views about where George Ryan’s true loyalties lie notwithstanding, the governor’s vote between Ryan and Wood in this race may be the most mysterious element of this story line. He and Wood have had some celebrated, behind- the-scenes flare-ups during their administration, yet she is entirely his creation down to their shared view that moderates should rule the GOP. And while his anger toward Jim Ryan’s attempts to hurry him out of office was real and lasting, the governor went along with efforts to redirect Wood elsewhere on the ticket to Jim Ryan’s benefit — perhaps in deference to the wishes of Daniels, the party’s new chairman and a long-time friend. The House Republican leader first endorsed Jim Ryan, then replaced that stance with a vow of neutrality upon being elevated to party chairman. Indeed, with 12 months to go before a new governor is seated, it seems pretty clear that George Ryan is resigned to letting things take their natural course, if there is such a thing in this political free-for-all. “Everybody has to make their own decision in the end, and that’s what’s happened here. You know, a faint heart never won fair ladies,’’ the governor says, invoking one of the oft-used phrases he has picked up along the way during a storied political career. “Whatever the ticket boils down to, I’ll be for.”

Illinois Issues, January, 2002

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