Jesse White, Illinois' two-term secretary of state, is generally perceived as a political institution and is thought to be impervious to defeat. His office provides services and does not make policy. That usually minimizes opportunities for voter discontent.

White, age 71, a black Chicago Democrat, was re-elected in 2002 by a stunning 1,338,509-vote margin, getting 67.9 percent of the votes cast and carrying all 102 Illinois counties. He won Cook County by 772,479 votes and Chicago by 519,327 votes. In 1998 he was elected by a margin of 437,206 votes (55.5 percent). Does this make him a cinch for another term in 2006?

Criticism of White is hot and heavy, and it comes not from the Republicans. When he was running for governor in 2002, Rod Blagojevich reportedly termed White's office a "cesspool of corruption." The budget of the Secretary of State's Office is "bloated" and "in need of reform," said a July 2003 memo from the governor's Office of Management and Budget which recommended slashing $28.7 million from White's budget. Further, the memo proposed a hiring freeze, a cut in "multiple layers of bureaucracy," a halt in pension payments to nonunion workers, the transfer of maintenance responsibilities of 23 Springfield buildings to another department, and an end to the practice of using carpenters to "build custom office furniture."

The attempt by Blagojevich to slash $48 million from White's fiscal year 2004 budget of $350 million failed, but the effort piqued White's ire. "He has a long history of his word not being good with me," White was quoted as saying, adding that Blagojevich "lied to us five times (about the budget) and bargained with us in poor faith, in bad faith . . ."

Think about this: The Democratic governor implies that White is inept, and the Democratic secretary of state says that Blagojevich is a liar. For Republicans, it can't get any better than this. But are voters listening?

Dan Rutherford, a state senator from Downstate Pontiac, thinks they are, and that he can beat White in 2006.

Rutherford, age 50, the likely Republican nominee for White's post, is convinced that longevity undermines popularity, and he intends to run on the premise that the level of service provided by employees in White's office hovers somewhere between dismal and abominable. "I won't run an anti-White campaign, but I will run a pro-change campaign," Rutherford said. "And we do need a change in the office."

In his Oct. 4 announcement, White emphasized the fact that in 1999 he "inherited an office under a cloud of corruption and controversy," a reference to his predecessor, George Ryan, who is now on trial for alleged fund-raising misdeeds during his tenure. The federal "Operation Safe Road" investigation resulted in 43 indictments and 38 convictions of Ryan employees or cohorts, and the feds denounced the "culture of corruption" under Ryan as secretary of state.

White said that he deserves another term, as his accomplishments include "cleaning up corruption, improving public service and making Illinois roads safer."

Rutherford scoffs at that assertion. "The office is not being run well," he said. "Services are not being provided in a timely and efficient manner. He is in his seventh year as secretary of state. If there's so-called corruption in the office, why has it taken him this long to eradicate it?"

The Republican has a point. White banned the practice of soliciting campaign contributions from office employees, which was Ryan's downfall. He has raised $1.18 million to date. He also hired former U.S. attorney Jim Burns to be his inspector general, to ferret out corruption.

But otherwise it's been business as usual. In February two Loop employees of White's office were charged with creating fake driver's licenses to establish a false identity to secure credit cards and make purchases. In March a floor supervisor was indicted for taking bribes to create fraudulent auto titles. In May of last year the state Auditor's General's Office criticized White for not knowing how 82 vehicles assigned to his senior staff were being used; one secretary had a car for a 200-mile daily commute to Springfield, at the cost of $72 per day. In February 2004 an office employee was fired after he complained that $1.4 million in state equipment was "missing," including 234 computers, 109 printers, 17 fax machines, three air conditioners, 22 walkie-talkies, nine scanners, 38 cameras and two snow blowers. In April 2003 Mike Curran, director of a state unit that regulated in-car breathalyzers, pleaded guilty to using state equipment for private work and political campaigns and to submitting phony travel vouchers. Just prior to the 2002 election, White's $50,000-a-year executive assistant, who lived in an apartment rented by White and who said she had an affair with White, allegedly received $175,000 in state grants that White helped arrange for her company, which trained welfare mothers for office work. And, to top it all, White's daughter had a $40,092-a-year job in Ryan's office; after her dad was elected, she got a job paying $70,000.

"If this is reform, then I'm living on the wrong planet." Rutherford said.

The Secretary of State's Office, which has more than 3,500 employees and which has an annual budget of more than $350 million out of a state budget of $54 billion, has long been a steppingstone to higher office. Among recent occupants, Democrat Alan Dixon (1977 to 1980) became a U.S. senator, and Republicans Jim Edgar (1981 to 1990) and George Ryan (1991 to 1998) became governor. White professes no such lofty ambitions, but he has declared his intention to serve two more terms, which means he has to win re-election in 2006 and 2010. If White wins next year and serves out the term, he will equal the tenure of Republican Louis Emmerson (1917 to 1928), who became governor in 1928, and he will eclipse that of Republican Charles Carpentier (1953 to 1964), who resigned for health reasons while he was running for governor in 1964. The longevity record of 16 years belongs to Republican James Rose, who served from 1897 to 1912.

The office generates more than $1.2 billion annually in revenue and regulates more than 8.5 million drivers, 9 million vehicles, nearly 300,000 state corporations, and 150,000 individuals and corporations who sell securities. Issuing license plates, driver's licenses and corporate charters are the bulk of the office's tasks.

According to Dave Druker, White's spokesman, the office is "doing more with less." Druker said that White has eliminated fraud in the commercial driver's license program, employed new technology in internal operations, updated driving records so that such information is available to prosecutors, and proposed a ban on selling autos to unlicensed drivers. In his re-election announcement, White bemoaned the fact that he "inherited lines at driver's facilities that spilled out of doors and down the street" and said that conditions have improved.

"That's just not true," Rutherford said. "The wait time is up to 2 hours at some facilities. There has been no improvement in service or technology."

Specifically, Rutherford promised that he would have a central call center with a pool of operators to answer generic questions. "Local offices and local employees should provide services, not answer phones," he said. "The problem is that and Jesse White runs his office like a monopoly, not a business. Why can't drivers call to schedule a time and date for a road test or exam? Why does it take 6 months to get a vehicle title? Why does it take 3 months to get an online license sticker?" Rutherford promised that he would implement a driver-friendly, low-wait environment if elected.

But can he be elected?

In 1998 White, then Cook County recorder of deeds, was embroiled in a tough statewide primary with Penny Severns, a Decatur state senator, and Orland Park police chief Tim McCarthy. McCarthy challenged Severns petitions and knocked her off the ballot. Severns, who was dying of cancer, then endorsed White, who beat McCarthy 484,798-384,603, a margin of 100,195 votes. The Republican candidate was Al Salvi, who won 365,880-324,529 over Bob Churchill -- hardly a resounding win for the 1996 Republican U.S. Senate nominee. In the ensuing election, Salvi was attacked as an "extremist," although it is difficult to conceptualize how one can be "extreme" in administering the Secretary of State's Office. White won, as did George Ryan.

Rutherford anticipates that he will raise at least $3 million for his 2006 campaign, and he anticipates that he will run better than White's hapless 2002 Republican foe, Kris Cohn, the Winnebago (Rockford) County Board chairman, who got an anemic 29.9 percent of the vote. "I can win if voters perceive the Democrats as the party of stagnation and corruption and if they vote for change," Rutherford said.

My prediction: In 2002 White won Cook County by 772,479 votes, getting 77.3 percent of the votes cast, and he won every other county, including usually Republican DuPage (27,451 votes), Lake (45,455), McHenry (12,453) and Will (33,321). In 2006 Rutherford may break even in the Collar Counties and Downstate, but he'll still get hammered in Cook County by 600,000-plus votes. Without a doubt, Jesse White will win a third term.