Jim Ryan is a decent guy and wouldn’t make a bad Governor. He’s obviously on the other side on several issues, but he’s an adult and has seldom been tolerant of the crazy wing. That said, I remember 2002–I was blogging in 2002 and the only question about his campaign was whether it worse than Topinka’s in 2006. It was remarkably awful with his message of the day for a couple days being that he wanted to be referred to as JRyan in newspaper articles and not just as Ryan so as not to be confused with George Ryan. Thus, G-Ry and J-Ry was born in the hey days of J-Lo. Would he have been better than Blagojevich? Duh, yeah. No one questions his personal character, but his political skills as a campaigner are not great.
But that’s not the question this time and he’d be facing an increasingly right wing Illinois Republican Party. He knows that wing, they targeted him in the 2002 primary with Patrick O’Malley challenging him from the right and then refusing to endorse him in the general election.
He also has the unfortunate distinction of having been beaten by both Rod Blagojevich and Roland Burris statewide. If he runs he’ll be fighting for an establishment vote in the GOP that is shrinking in favor of movement conservatives. The establishment wing includes three from DuPage with J-Ry, Schillerstrom, and Dillard. Add in McKenna who is an establishment candidate and all of a sudden Bill Brady looks like he has a good shot. Or if God loves me enough–Dan Proft.
“No one questions his personal character”
Rolando Cruz does.
— MrJM
You really have no clue what the opposition has on Ryan. Forget it.