Images endure. That’s bad news for Jim
Ryan, as his Grim Man visage grows ever less appealing.
He needs to lighten up. But as his
prospects for winning the Illinois governorship in November grow ever grimmer,
Republican Ryan can be excused for feeling like he’s the captain of the
Titanic, and that the iceberg he’s about to hit is a federal indictment of
Governor George Ryan for bribe-taking, which will occur before the election.
Such an eventuality would sink Jim Ryan like a rock.
And George Ryan’s legal problems endure,
and grow ever grimmer. That’s also bad news for Jim Ryan, as all-but-certain
voter revulsion to the licenses-for-bribes scandal will spur tens – if not
hundreds -- of thousands of voters to support Democrat Rod Blagojevich for
governor just because he’s not a Republican. Since George Ryan beat Democrat
Glenn Poshard in 1998 by just 119,903 votes, it won’t take much attrition of
the Republican vote to elect a Democrat.
Add another debit to Jim Ryan’s bad news
column: Ryan can’t posture as a crime-busting, corruption-fighting tiger,
since he’s been the state’s attorney general for the past eight years –
and has done nothing to investigate or prosecute official corruption in the
Secretary of State’s office. He’s been an insider, and voters are now
inclined to want an outsider.
If the governor’s race were to be run
and decided on the issue of competence and experience, Ryan easily trumps
Blagojevich; but if the premier issue is corruption, and if the political
environment is suffused with more indictments and convictions, then Jim Ryan is
a loser. Right now, George Ryan is beating Jim Ryan to a pulp, and
Blagojevich’s support grows with each passing day.
Because the Illinois primary is in
mid-March, contestants for major office have a window of opportunity from April
through June to define (or redefine) themselves, or to define (or redefine)
their adversary. Voters aren’t listening to media ads in July and August, and
the airwaves are too saturated with ads in September and October to make an
impact.
Now is the time for Ryan to be pounding on
Blagojevich, much as Governor Jim Edgar in 1994 went negative on Dawn Clark
Netsch and defined her as a big-spending liberal. Blagojevich is leading Ryan in
the early polls, although not by much. A Chicago Tribune poll in April put
Blagojevich ahead in the race by 46-45 percent, with 92 percent of respondents
agreeing that “corruption” was an important issue; a Democratic poll in
early May put Blagojevich up by 44-31. At this same time in 1998, Poshard was
ahead of Ryan.
Ryan just raised $2.2 million at a May
fundraiser featuring President George Bush. Now that he has the wherewithal, the
pressure is growing intense on Ryan to go on the offensive, and to define
Blagojevich as too liberal and too inexperienced to be governor. Blagojevich’s
Grin Man image should be a liability, since he oozes platitudes, looks kiddish,
is perpetually smiling, and clearly lacks intellectual heft to be chief
executive. In fact, if he wore a tophat, he would look like the grinch in Dr.
Seuss’ books.
But George Ryan, when he ran for governor
in 1998, was the virtual embodiment of experience: 16 years as a state
representative, eight as lieutenant governor, and eight as secretary of state.
So when Blagojevich, age 45, acknowledges that his 10-year political career
spans just four years in the state legislature and six as a congressman,
that’s an asset, not a liability. Voters will figure that he hasn’t yet
learned the art of corruption, or hasn’t yet learned how to ignore it when he
sees it.
Ryan’s problem is that George Ryan is
stuck in his window of opportunity. How can Ryan excoriate Blagojevich as too
liberal to be governor when all voters now want is just somebody who’s honest
as governor? To be sure, Blagojevich’s legislative record paints him as both
conservative and liberal: He is a deft prevaricator, adept as straddling issues
and grandstanding on those with maximum impact.
On certain issues, Blagojevich is very
liberal: He supports abortion rights, voted against a ban on partial-birth
abortions, opposed requiring parental consent for minors’ abortions, opposed a
bill to criminalize the transportation of minors over state lines to get an
abortion, and opposed a bill to make the killing of a fetus during the
commission of a violent crime a federal offense. He supports gay rights, voted
to allow homosexual couples to adopt children, supported “domestic partners”
coverage under health insurance, and voted to make “sexual orientation” a
protected class under federal employment laws; but he opposed a revocation of
the Boy Scouts’ charter because of a ban on homosexual scoutmasters.
He supports gun control, and opposed a
bill limiting liability for unknowing hunters in baited fields. He supported a
congressional pay hike. He backed racial set-asides of 10 percent on federal
contracts, and racial quotas for college admissions. He supported Puerto Rican
statehood. And he voted to use tax dollars to provide needles to drug addicts.
Clearly, he is a social-issue liberal, marching in lockstep with such leftists
as Jesse Jackson and Ted Kennedy.
On fiscal issues, Blagojevich voted
against eliminating the federal inheritance tax, and opposed the 10-year, $1.35
billion Bush tax cut; he opposed amending the Constitution to require a
two-thirds congressional vote to raise taxes; he voted to slash the Bush tax cut
to $750 billion. While Bill Clinton was still in the White House, Blagojevich
voted against tax cuts of $792 billion and of $778 billion over ten years.
Clearly, he was no tax-cutter.
On defense matters, Blagojevich, who is of
Serbian ancestry, supported Clinton’s intervention in Kosovo, and backed a
$14.5 billion appropriation for Kosovo military operations; he also backed the
Republicans’ proposed missile defense plan, but voted to kill appropriations
for the space station. Clearly, he is somewhat hawkish on military matters.
But, in his usual eclectic fashion,
Blagojevich voted in support of 8-year U.S. House term limits, opposed federal
funds for suicide assistance, supported posting the Ten Commandments in public
buildings, supported penalties on U.S. flag desecration, and supported a ban on
“soft money” campaign contributions. But, in glorious bout of hypocrisy,
Blagojevich in late 2001 transferred $632,000 from his congressional campaign
account to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC); he could not
lawfully spend that money on his state campaign. That donation went into a
non-federal DCCC account, which then made a “soft money” $900,000
contribution to Blagojevich’s governor’s campaign. That was a nice
“profit.”
Is Blagojevich a superficial opportunist,
whose every vote, thought and pronouncement is calculated to win votes? Or is he
a thoughtful and sagacious legislator, who votes for what he thinks is right,
regardless of ideology? If you picked the former, you’re right. Blagojevich is
a pure campaign machine, grinning and twisting and trimming, packaging himself
to his audience, and ready to sprint in whatever direction the wind is blowing.
Does this sound vaguely familiar? A
politician without a core or a compass, eager to say whatever it takes to win?
Think Richard Nixon. Think Bill Clinton.
The bottom line: Ryan must show that
Blagojevich is ill-equipped and ill-suited to be governor. And that means
portraying him not as a liberal, but rather as an opportunist. Unless Ryan goes
negative during June and July, Blagojevich may become impervious to attack. If
George Ryan gets indicted, Blagojevich will loom as salvation, and nobody will
care how slippery, shallow and superficial he is. The Grin Man will be the next
governor.
