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 t a
packed "Unity Lunch" in Chicago the day after the Illinois
primary election, hundreds of Republicans gathered for the mandatory
group hug, where all the candidates who had just spent months savaging
each other are suddenly expected to profess a profound admiration
for one another. All eyes were looking to the head table, where
the combatants from the gubernatorial race were supposed to break
bread and sing Kumbaya.
Not one of the three GOP candidates who ran for governor attended
the lunch, a first since the advent of this post-election ritual.
Primary winner Attorney General Jim Ryan made a brief appearance
for the cameras, but hurried off before the festivities got underway
rather than sit between two empty chairs. Neither of his opponents
paid even a brief visit to congratulate him, and there will likely
be no endorsement from either losing candidate.
After a 26-year
lock on the governor's mansion in Illinois, the state Republican
party is in disarray. Ironically, despite an unpopular Republican
incumbent who is mired in a scandal that has produced 45 indictments
and 42 convictions for his former employees, GOP prospects for winning
the top post looked bright until the last weeks before the primary.
In a divisive
three-way contest on Tuesday, Ryan beat back liberal Lt. Governor
Corinne Wood and conservative state Sen. Patrick O'Malley, but he
is undeniably wounded from an unrelenting series of assaults.
Although underdog
challengers often attack the leader in unison, Wood and O'Malley
formed a rather bizarre tag-team approach to bashing Ryan, one punching
from the left, the other from the right. The only similarity between
these disparate candidates is that both are largely self-funded-they
spent a combined $8 million in personal money-and wildly self-important,
even compared to most other politicians. Both also ran primarily
on abortion, Wood as a staunch defender of abortion rights, and
O'Malley as a steadfast pro-lifer.
In talking
with Republican insiders in the state capital of Springfield, a
portrait of Wood as a bumbling politician with terrible instincts
emerges. Her political skills, or lack thereof, leave a lot to be
desired. According to several sources, Wood regularly forgets very
important people, such as powerful lobbyists and personal friends
of current Gov. George Ryan (no relation). One very well-known Republican
strategist and friend of Gov. Ryan has met Wood more than three
dozen times, including at small dinner events, yet she cluelessly
introduces herself each time as if it is the first time the two
have met.
Wood's campaign
strategy reflected her political ineptness. She effectively alienated
every core Republican constituency, leaving many to wonder why she
chose to run in the GOP primary. "We're all scratching our
heads that she chose to run in the Republican party," says
veteran political consultant Larry Hoffman. "In Republican
primaries in Illinois," he notes, "conservatives do a
lot better than moderates-and she ran as a liberal."
Early on, Wood
made abortion rights the centerpiece of her campaign, a curious
strategy to say the least. Although Illinois is somewhat left-of-center,
and moving further to the left in recent presidential contests,
it is not known as a bastion of abortion activism, least of all
among GOP primary voters. Hoffman succinctly expresses the sentiment
of many Illinois Republicans when he says, "You wonder how
in the heck she dreamt it up. I can't imagine what she was thinking."
Wood defiantly
ran to the left of the Democratic gubernatorial candidates
by recruiting feminist icon Gloria Steinem to campaign for her in
the last week before the election. Steinem recorded a voice message
that was delivered by an automated telephone system to 80,000 "hard
D's," or solid Democrats, urging them to vote in the Republican
primary for Wood. This ploy was not a last desperate act; it followed
supposedly independent ads aired several months ago by Planned Parenthood
trashing Ryan on his abortion record.
Aside from
the long history of Democrats rarely voting in Republican primaries
in Illinois, Wood's plan had an Achilles' heel: There was a fiercely
competitive, three-way Democratic primary. With three true liberals
in the Democratic field, Democratic voters had no need to back Wood
in her primary fight.
While Wood
was busy futilely courting Democrats, O'Malley actually worked to
win over traditional Republicans. He ran as the "true conservative"
in the race, but he eventually failed to distinguish himself from
Ryan, who has long been popular with conservatives. O'Malley had
little reason to be in the campaign, and never managed to articulate
one. Although he is a wealthy lawyer, O'Malley ran as an unabashed
social conservative in a state where fire-and-brimstone doesn't
play well. He repeatedly told church audiences that he was on a
"holy crusade" to protect the unborn, proclaiming himself
a true descendent of the likes of Martin Luther King Jr., and Abraham
Lincoln.
O'Malley's
message didn't even catch on with pro-life voters because Ryan is
also pro-life. They both would allow exceptions to save the life
of the mother, but Ryan would also allow abortions in cases of rape
and incest. But in a world with Roe v. Wade, such
a distinction is purely academic.
In the '90s,
a string of wealthy conservative upstarts knocked off establishment
moderates in primary battles, most recently with now-Sen. Peter
Fitzgerald toppling the sitting comptroller, Loleta Didrickson.
But since Ryan was the first candidate to announce, he picked up
most of the establishment and activist support early, locking in
the conservative base tapped by Fitzgerald and others.
Unlike most
losing candidates who concede graciously and pledge support for
the winner, O'Malley has vowed to do whatever he can to help defeat
Ryan in November. This is in keeping with his reputation as a loner
and an ideological purist. Says one senior Republican staffer who
works for an Illinois congressman, "O'Malley takes policy differences
very personally, and he holds grudges against other conservatives,
even on minor squabbles."
Given that
Wood and O'Malley were diametrically opposed on the central issue
for each-abortion, logic would seem to dictate that they would rule
out supporting each other. But in this unusual primary, the "odd
couple" declared at the last debate that each would support
the other over Ryan. O'Malley and Wood may have merely joined forces
out of contempt for Ryan, but it hurt their credibility among core
backers.
With final
results in, Ryan soundly defeated his opponents, garnering 44 percent
of the vote, to O'Malley's 29 percent, with Wood bringing up the
rear at 26 percent. This victory is not as good as it appears, however,
as Ryan was at 50 percent in the election-eve polls, meaning that
the undecideds, and even some of Ryan's supporters, broke for the
odd couple in the voting booth. The silver lining, of course, is
that roughly three-fourths of the voters picked one of the conservative
candidates.
Whether or
not Ryan is able to pull together a winning coalition for November
remains an open question. Regardless of O'Malley's non-endorsement,
it's not likely that those who voted for him would shun a pro-life,
pro-gun politician with a long conservative track record. Ryan's
biggest struggle will be wooing suburban women who backed Wood.
In his acceptance
speech late Tuesday night, the Democratic nominee, U.S. Rep. Rod
Blagojevich pounced on Republican fissures, exclaiming that "fellow
Republicans have it right" that Ryan cannot be trusted.
Ryan faces
an uphill struggle this fall, particularly with a state party that
he himself admits is "in chaos."
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