May 29, 2002
GOVERNOR'S RACE UNFOLDS: GRIM MAN VS. GRIN MAN
ANALYSIS & OPINION BY RUSS STEWART
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.