The Great Illinois Republican Civil War has started. Circle up and fire folks. O’Malley and his clan have decided to committ hari kari in the same fashion as Republicans in California and New Jersey.
As a Democrat, I suppose this should make me happy. It doesn’t. I grew up in Illinois and always admired the moderate Republicanism of Jim Thompson and Jim Edgar. They provided a great check excesses of the left and still respected education funding, infrastructure and individual liberties. Jim Thompson provided the infrastructure that makes Illinois an ideopolis now. Without him, Illinois may well be Missouri with good farmland and a big crumbling city. Instead, Chicago is a world class city (Washington and Daley deserve credit for this as well), education is good in most areas (see posting on Blog St. Louis about rural ed), and Illinois is relatively good on social issues.
No more. Now there will be a huge blow-up in the Republican Party between those moderates who have a motto of “Let’s not get excited,” and the jihad wingnuts who are more worried about homeschooling and abortion than infrastructure. I imagine the wing-nuts will eventually win and we’ll see the Democrats take over the state for years to come. Wingnuts are bad for bidness and Illinois is a bidness state.
That is too bad. Many Democratic leaders in the State of Illinois need to be checked. I like Madigan for what he gets done, but he is all too happy to use state resources to further his political goals (separate from policy goals). Republican cronieism provides a check on that. But it won’t if there aren’t any Republicans left in office.