Chicago Conservative Blues
Looking for reasons to back Republicans.

rom the looks of it, conservatives in Chicago are tired of one-party dominance in their state capital — a reign that's led to massive spending increases, higher taxes, and liberal extremism on issues like capital punishment and abortion.

The party they're mad at — the party that's held the governor's mansion in Springfield for 28 of the last 32 years — is the GOP.

Speaking at the recent Chicago Conservative Conference in suburban Oak Brook, I was struck by the vehemence with which the hundreds of rank-and-file conservatives and libertarians attacked retiring Gov. George Ryan, his predecessors Jim Edgar and Jim Thompson, and the current frontrunner for the Republican nomination this year, Attorney General Jim Ryan. The latter has no familial relationship to George Ryan, but seems in many ways to be his political heir.

This is not a compliment. Gov. Ryan's administration is essentially collapsing around him. Before winning election to the top slot in 1998, he served as Illinois secretary of state. One of his duties was the issuance of driver's licenses. During his tenure, however, driving privileges were evidently available for anyone willing to grease the appropriate palms. The resulting corruption would become a threat to public safety: In 1994, a couple's minivan caught fire after striking a fallen part from the truck of an illegally licensed driver. The family's six children died. A federal probe led to lawsuits and criminal trials that have yielded more than 40 convictions.

As the licenses-for-bribery scandal deepened last year, Ryan announced that he wouldn't be seeking reelection. Conservatives weren't disappointed — in addition to malfeasances before he became governor, Ryan's conduct since 1998 hadn't exactly warmed their hearts. He has issued an unpopular (and arguably unconstitutional) moratorium on the death penalty in Illinois. While signing some small tax cuts early in his term as governor, he raised other levies to fund a massive transportation package. In 2000, he proposed a $12 billion hike in education spending over five years, dismissing a competitive legislative proposal to cut taxes as "giving away the store." The resulting deal included modest and largely temporary tax cuts, while Ryan's budget-busting plans survived largely intact. "The bad news," observed the Cato Institute in a 2000 report card on the nation's governors, "is that George Ryan's tenure has so far brought a continuation of the big government fiscal policies of former governor Jim Edgar."

The numbers tell the story of Illinois under the past three Republican governors. State spending has grown faster than personal income in 18 of the last 20 years. During the 1990s, the general fund grew by 78 percent (from $13 billion to $23 billion), while the combined state and local tax burden edged up to nearly 10 percent of personal income. Although other states — my own among them — saw even worse fiscal policy during that decade, Illinois could have followed the lead of, say, New York, which managed a comparatively modest 27 percent growth in state spending and actually reduced its overall tax burden.

Conservatives and Republicans across the country need to recognize that having an "R" beside one's name isn't necessarily predictive of sound policy-making. And there's no money-back guarantee in politics. In fact, just the opposite is true: When voters choose unwisely, they pay more.

The usual strategy in a situation like this is for aggrieved conservatives to run one of their own in the primary — to either win, or at least pull the party back to the right. This is not a new idea in Illinois, the state that, after all, gave us Ronald Reagan. Joe Bast, who founded the free-market Heartland Institute in Chicago in 1984, has watched what he calls "numerous failed attempts" to challenge Republican standard-bearers from the Right. He attributes these failures to two factors: an inability to recruit principled, well-financed, and attractive candidates from the business community — and the continued influence of machine politics in the state. "It's an insider clique that runs state government, and as a result there is little ground-level organization," Bast said. "A quarter century of [moderate] Republican governors has devastated the infrastructure and grass roots of the Republican Party."

This year's conservative Republican insurgent (or sacrificial lamb, to the pessimists) is state senator Patrick O'Malley of Palos Park. Judging from his well-received appearance at the Chicago Conservative Conference, O'Malley is a passionate but undisciplined speaker, with solid legislative experience and reliably conservative positions. He faults both Ryans — George and the GOP frontrunner to replace him, Jim — for social liberalism and fiscal irresponsibility. "We are in a struggle for the soul of the Republican party," O'Malley said, his loud voice nearly drowned out by boisterous applause. "The voters of this state have been robbed by an administration that is corrupt." Referring to the attorney general's previous lackluster speech to the same audience — Jim Ryan was the only one of four gubernatorial candidates who didn't hang around for questions or mingling — O'Malley ridiculed him for "leaving with his tail between his legs," and warned that he wouldn't fight for the taxpayers or families of Illinois. O'Malley even got in a few excellent digs at the attorney general for suing Microsoft and bungling the tobacco settlement (outside trial lawyers will skim off much of the booty headed for Illinois). And O'Malley was polite to, but also devastatingly critical of, the moderate Republican rival that did remain on the platform, Lieutenant Governor Corinne Wood.

Illinois conservatives feel little but disdain for Jim Ryan, and I wouldn't be surprised if the feeling is mutual. After all, the attorney general is way out in front without them. According to the most recent poll, taken by Market Strategies, he has 57 percent of the primary voters — as versus about 15 percent each for O'Malley and Wood. The poll number is lopsided due to voter ignorance (it's reasonable to assume that many people mix up George and Jim, and go with the surname they recognize), but the same dynamic will likely hold true on primary day. A Jim Ryan nomination naturally won't generate much Republican enthusiasm in the fall, and stands to give Democrats — themselves facing a tough primary involving five serious contenders — a leg up in a race they haven't won since 1972.

Then again — as Illinois conservatives now can't help asking — so what if a Democrat does win the gubernatorial race this year? What's the difference?