Open Thread and a Question?

Who ran the worst Illinois Campaign of the last 20 years?

Jim Ryan ’02

Stevenson ’86 (a fitting number for that campaign)

Jack Ryan ’04

Dawn Clark Netsch ’94

Damn even balanced it on partisan grounds without trying.

4 thoughts on “Open Thread and a Question?”
  1. I wasn’t around to see the Stevenson or the Netsch race. I was too young, but Ryan 02 is not anywhere near the incompetence of Ryan 04. Those guys just never told a compelling story (cancer, boxing, wife stuff), these guys just can not step off their dicks long enough to even get a message out there. All it is so far is, “Well, that’s not what we mean”.

    IMO, they weren’t going to win anyway, but this is bad news down the ballot. It may hurt house races, it may hurt senate races, it may hurt County Board Races, it may hurt the Fossil that is Crane….

    That’s my two cents.

  2. Have to agree with Rhodes. On top of that, Jim Ryan ’02 actually ended up closer to Blowdriedevich than he should have, so one could argue that he ran a good campaign (well, that’s not true, but he should have lost by more if not for Blago’s own lameness)

  3. I’d have to go with Jack! right now and his race isn’t even over yet. I extend some sympathy to Stevenson and Jim Ryan though. Stevenson didn’t expect or ask to have a LaRouchie as a Lt. Gov nominee in 1986 and Jim, try as he might, couldn’t get out from under the black noxious cloud George Ryan left.

  4. Netsch also ran into a rather steamroller of the 1994 election and a hugely popular Governor who many moderate Democrats would vote for (I did in 1990).

    Jack! seems to be off to just an amazingly bad campaign and what is amazing is there doesn’t appear to be anyone to right the ship. Even worse, if he stays in and alienates himself from the establishment–there is no one to right the ship.

    I’m still amazed at the Jim Ryan campaign for the reason Chris says-fairly compelling story and at heart a decent guy (yes he royally screwed up the Cruz case). Even with the bad environment, he still ran a boring campaign and got hung up on ridiculous things like asking the press to refer to him as JRyan–or as I liked to say J-Ry.

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