In 1998, at mid-summer, polls indicated that Republican George Ryan was slightly trailing Democrat Glenn Poshard in the Illinois governor’s race. But Ryan’s campaign had a strategy, and Poshard, a Downstate congressman, had a weakness.

            Poshard, through his 10 years in Washington, had voted against gay rights, and had voted to restrict the availability of abortion. Ryan’s strategy was to paint Poshard as some kind of insensitive Downstate hick, to focus on Cook and the collar counties, and to entice liberals and independents, who normally support Democrats, to vote for Ryan because of Poshard’s unacceptability. Ryan’s strategy worked.

            Now it’s 2002, and polls indicate that Democrat Rod Blagojevich is significantly ahead of Republican Jim Ryan. But this time, Ryan doesn’t have a strategy, and Blaogjevich doesn’t have any Poshard-like weaknesses. As can be discerned from the adjoining vote chart, Blagojevich voted a predictably liberal line on almost every key roll-call, rarely deviating from his fellow House Democrats, and only occasionally differing from super-liberal colleagues Jan Schakowsky (D-9) and Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-2). But that record will not be a problem.

            Blagojevich voted against the Bush tax cut, and against the repeal of the federal gift and estate tax, the elimination of the marriage penalty (which taxes couples at a higher rate than single taxpayers), and every Republican effort to cut spending and taxes; he supported campaign finance reform, abortion choice, the airlines’ bailout, increased agriculture subsidies and cloning, and opposed fast-track trade authority for the president and new work requirements for welfare recipients. He also opposed a congressional resolution mandating time for “prayer and quiet reflection” for students in public schools.

Blagojevich adroitly straddled some issues: He voted to expand federal law enforcement powers to fight terrorism, but opposed broadened electronic surveillance. He voted for “domestic partner” health insurance coverage, but opposed enforcing an agency ruling that required the Boy Scouts to admit homosexuals as members and scoutmasters. He voted for the $383.4 billion homeland security appropriation, for $317 billion in defense spending, and for admitting former Soviet bloc countries and republics to NATO, but opposed  allowing nuclear-tipped interceptors as part of the president’s missile defense plan,  opposed U.S. aid to fight pro-communist guerillas in Colombia, and opposed the use of the U.S. military for drug interdiction and border patrol (to stop illegal aliens). He opposed the Republicans’ Patients’ Bill of Rights, and opposed putting a cap on damages in health care lawsuits, but supported the Democratic version.

Because the Service Employees International Union was supporting his candidacy for governor, and represented about 1,000 screeners from private firms, Blagojevich voted against federalizing airport baggage screeners.

Unlike Schakowsky and Jackson, Blagojevich voted to allow Congress to pass a law to ban flag desecration, rather than go through the lengthy process of a constitutional amendment.

Also included in the vote chart are Democrats Bill Lipinski (D-3), from Chicago’s Southwest Side, and Luis Gutierrez (D-4), from Chicago’s Hispanic-majority district, as well as Republicans Henry Hyde (R-6), from the western suburbs, and Mark Kirk (R-10), from the North Shore suburbs. Blagojevich’s district takes in Chicago’s Northwest Side, Schakowsky’s the city Lakefront plus Evanston and Skokie, and Jackson’s the far South Side and black-majority south suburbs.

Quite clearly, Blagojevich is the Man in the Middle. He’s more liberal than Lipinski, a social conservative who votes much like Poshard did. And he’s slightly less liberal than Schakowsky, Gutierrez and Jackson. Kirk, who narrowly won his seat in 2000, has carefully replicated the pattern of his predecessor, John Porter: he is fiscally conservative, but quite liberal on social issues like abortion and gay rights.

Schakowsky has ambitions to run for U.S. Senator in 2004, but her very liberal voting record would certainly enable her opponents, either in the primary or election, to “do a Poshard” on her, isolating her as out of sync with the majority of Illinoisans. Jackson wants to be Chicago’s mayor, and, when he runs, his voting record will be a treasure trove for his mayoral opponents.

But the bottom line is this: Can Ryan “do a Poshard” on Blagojevich? And the answer is no. Attacking Blagojevich as too liberal on social issues is counter-productive. Ryan has already run TV ads Downstate attacking Blagojevich as pro-abortion and pro-gay rights. But the news media then made that a major story, allowing Blagojevich to blast Ryan’s alleged “extreme” position – opposition to all forms of abortion – and the result was a solidification of Blagojevich’s liberal base.    Ryan could try to paint Blagojevich as a big-spender and foe of tax reduction. But, given the state’s dire economic condition, the next governor will certainly have to raise taxes and/or slash spending. A more promising avenue could be to attack Blagojevich for his absenteeism; Ryan’s campaign claims that Blagojevich missed half of the House’s roll-calls in 2002.

 However, unlike Poshard,  Blagojevich’s voting record will not beat Blagojevich.