The Men Who Would Be Governor:
George Ryan and Glenn Poshard may have taken different paths, but in important ways they are political cousins
by Jennifer Davis
Illustrations by Mike Cramer
George Ryan and Glenn Poshard will be doing their darndest over the next few weeks to convince us how different they are, one from another.
There are, of course, vast differences - on issues, for example, and in style. But what is more striking, and ultimately more significant for the way Illinois is governed over the next four years, is how alike the two candidates for governor are.
In important ways, Poshard and Ryan are political cousins - distant cousins, perhaps, who took divergent paths, but were nonetheless reared in the same family of political traditions, values and outlook.
George Ryan is not Al Salvi, and Glenn Poshard is not Pat Quinn. Neither Ryan nor Poshard has a maverick bone in his body. Rather, their political roots, their party loyalty, their ties to special interests, their pragmatic get-things-done approach to government distinguish them from upstarts like Salvi or Quinn and their more ideological, combative, anti-party personas.
So Illinois' next governor will have paid his political dues in elective office and through long service to the party. He will be beholden to certain special interests - doctors, maybe, or teachers. He will view government as an active, and generally positive, force in people's lives. No matter who wins.
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Perhaps the clearest and most fundamental commonality they share is a similar political upbringing and rise through party ranks.
George H. Ryan was raised in the politically tight-knit community of Kankakee, the heart of northeastern Illinois' Kankakee County.
"It was a good organization," says current Kankakee Mayor Don Green, referring to the days when state Sen. Edward McBroom ran things.
McBroom, Ryan's first political mentor, was the Republican Party's county chair and showed the young pharmacist how to use the Manteno Mental Health Center to dole out patronage jobs.
"McBroom just knew everybody," recalls former state Senate President William Harris. "He was a damn good Cadillac salesman, and he just loved
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politics. He worked very hard at it."
Simply put, Ryan "grew up in a town with a strong tradition of local politics in which a small elite felt it ran things,'' explains Jim Nowlan, a political scientist and former state legislator who also coordinates Ryan's campaign in tiny Stark County. "That's the world he learned politics in. I would say George Ryan probably reflects the values of small town Main Street, which some say are the bedrock of society. Family, community."
And, for Ryan, government "is about the practical politics of doing things for people."
Ryan first ascended into elective office in 1966 by filling a vacancy on the county board. His brother, Tom, had just been elected mayor of Kankakee. George rose to become county board
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chairman in six years before he was elected to the Illinois House in 1972.
Once in the Statehouse, the conservative small-businessman collected new political allies. House Speaker W. Robert Blair, for one.
Blair, another politically ambitious pragmatist, saw potential in the new lawmaker. "I thought that George had a future," Blair explains. "I could sense he had been bitten by the political bug." Indeed, he adds, the two were close in age and shared common interests, having grown up in neighboring counties, both Republican Party strongholds.
Other observers are more blunt. "Blair, who had ambitions beyond the House, was anxious to build bridges with the Kankakee Republican Party, which McBroom ran," says Paul Lis, a longtime adviser to Ryan. "And George was
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McBroom's guy, so Blair offered him an entry into leadership that most freshmen are not afforded."
Blair and Ryan are close even today. They dine regularly with a small select group of old friends, which includes Harris and other former lawmakers.
"This guy is remarkable in how he stays in touch," Harris says of Ryan. "I'm not in his class by yards."
It's likely that skill in cultivating and keeping the right friends was what helped elevate Ryan to House leadership so swiftly. After only four years in the legislature, Ryan's colleagues elected him minority leader. Four years later, in 1981, he became speaker.
But party loyalty also entails personal sacrifice. Many thought then-Gov. Jim Thompson would appoint Ryan secretary of state after Alan Dixon won the U.S.
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Senate seat in 1980, but that plum went to Jim Edgar. Thompson felt he needed Ryan's strong influence in the chaotic House, which was still grappling with the contentious Equal Rights Amendment, as well as a transportation crisis involving the Regional Transportation Authority. Still, Ryan never grumbled.
One thing Ryan is not is a grouser, friends say. And he's fiercely loyal, everyone agrees. In 1981, when Thompson wanted to turn Manteno into a prison, House Speaker Ryan swallowed that bitter pill without a word. He is for the party, for better or worse.
"George respects the institution of government," says Don Udstuen, a friend and self-described sounding board who helped Ryan run for lieutenant governor, secretary of state and now governor. "I think many younger politicians are a little more cynical and treat it like a game. George realizes there are game-like aspects to it, but he is old-school in that he fundamentally respects the offices he holds and others hold."
Ryan's loyalty was rewarded in 1983 when, with Thompson's help, he moved into the lieutenant governor's office. From there, he was elected secretary of state in 1990 and was re-elected in 1994. And most agree that post, which offers thousands of employees - and, by extension, campaign volunteers - and such feel-good issues to champion as literacy and organ donation, is a perfect springboard to the governor's mansion.
Ryan, who has spent 32 years in public office, is ready.
Glenn Poshard's life is rooted in the same core political belief that government
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should do for people. And, in representing parts or all of 27 counties in central and southeastern Illinois, Poshard's focus has been on his people. That's why, for example, he chose to vote against the federal Clean Air Act to help save the coalfield jobs in his district.
In 1974, Poshard, an educator, became assistant director of the Southern Illinois Regional Education Service Center. He served as director of the Area Service Center for Educators of the Gifted before being appointed to the state Senate in 1984. He won re-election in 1986 and then moved on to Congress in 1988. He is now sending himself home from Washington, having promised to limit his term to 10 years. His public service career now stands at 14 years, but his political education began, he admits, at a very young age.
"I never dreamed I'd be running for governor, but I always loved politics," says Poshard. "Growing up, my dad just talked politics all the time. I loved John Kennedy. I memorized every speech he ever made when I was a kid. He spoke to my generation in a way that no one else could. He let us know that we were not citizens of tomorrow; we were citizens of today. We could make a difference. And although my father only had a third grade education, he always emphasized that you've got to participate. You've got to make a contribution. This is what the country is about.
His father and John F. Kennedy. These are Poshard's mentors, he says. Indeed, he still quotes Kennedy often in casual conversation.
Still, it was among the politically active - and socially conservative - organizations of southern Illinois that Poshard received his real-life political schooling. "Poshard's was also a traditionalistic culture, where politics probably represented an economic center," says Nowlan. "It represented jobs. And because southern Illinois was poorer, I'm sure those [jobs] loomed larger than they would in more prosperous parts of the state." Patronage and party loyalty would be prized. Such a lesson has obviously stayed with Poshard, who, despite some early advice to distance himself from the troubled campaign of U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun, has consistently preached party unity.
So Ryan and Poshard mirror each other when it comes to political experience. Neither is a Dan Walker nor a Jim Thompson, both of whom held the governorship as their first elected office. Instead, these two would-be governors moved up through the ranks, developing ties to special interests and legions of supporters along the way.
And, despite their dissimilar personalities - Ryan is perceived as rather gruff at first, but personable in close encounters; Poshard is an aw-shucks sort with a talent for fiery speechifying - they have cultivated that support in much the same way.
"We're very close," says Harris, who was Senate president when Ryan first served in the legislature in 1973. "I know he's not on the phone talking to his press people. He's on the phone talking to constituents."
Similarly, Logan County's Democratic Party chair, Nancy Amberg, marvels at Poshard because "I've never had such personal contact with a gubernatorial candidate before. It's not unusual for him to pick up the phone and call me just to see how things are in Logan County. I'm proud to say I was one of the first county chairs to endorse him."
Unlike Ryan, though, Poshard's formula for building his base, his message of giving government back, is aimed at his party's grass roots. And he can be electrifying. On a mid-July Saturday night when Poshard was running late and all
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the $25-a-plate fried chicken was gone, Menard County Democratic Chair Shirley McCombs asked the crowd in the tiny town of Oakford to stick around. "If you've never heard him speak, you're in for a real treat," she promised.
Still, both men have succeeded in securing the support, financial and otherwise, of their party's traditional backers.
"Ryan leans heavily toward business; Poshard leans heavily toward labor," says former Statehouse reporter and Gov. Edgar press secretary Mike Lawrence, laying out the obvious. Ryan has the endorsement of the Illinois State Chamber of Commerce, the second time in its history the state's largest business group has taken such action. Further, much of Ryan's financial support is from business interests, as Crain's Chicago Business detailed in April and May with stories on the hundreds of thousands of dollars coming into Ryan's campaign coffers from Medicaid providers, HMO owners and people interested in expanding gambling in Illinois.
In contrast, Poshard has the backing of the state's largest union group, the Illinois AFL-CIO, which has pledged to spend more than $1 million to help elect the entire statewide Democratic ticket.
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Further, Poshard has built alliances with the political pillars of his party, including former state Senate President Phil Rock of Oak Park, U.S. Rep. William Lipinski of Chicago's Southwest Side, and Edmund Kelly, Chicago's 47th Ward committeeman.
Poshard's weak flank is on his party's liberal side. Chicago Democratic Rep. Larry McKeon, the only openly gay and HIV-positive state lawmaker, has publicly said he won't be voting for either candidate. And many women are turned off by Poshard's opposition to abortion and other "women's issues," says Luellen Laurenti, lobbyist for the Illinois National Organization for Women. "On what I call the easy stuff, [Poshard] has been there. On the more difficult, contentious [women's] issues, he really hasn't shown any leadership in my opinion."
Ironically, a backlash of irate liberal female voters could benefit Ryan, whose weak flank should by rights be on the liberal and female side of his party. Ryan was House speaker when the Equal Rights Amendment ran out of time. And critics still blame him for blocking a procedural change that would have allowed the proposed federal amendment to pass with a simple majority instead of the three-fifths majority required by House rules. But Carol Frederick, a lobbyist who was active during Illinois' ERA battle, believes NOW and other liberal women are "much more incensed that Poshard is anti-abortion." They expect it from Ryan,
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a Republican, but not from a Democrat, she says. Frederick, a self-described southern Illinois Republican, has thinly veiled criticism for Ryan's ability to leave his political past behind. "George has done a lot of the very politically savvy things you do" to woo supporters.
Yet one could argue the ability to build new allegiances is a sign of growth. It's definitely the modus operandi of a pragmatist, a label that fits both candidates.
"George is more interested in getting something done than being able to say, politically, he was right," says Udstuen. "I think people are tired of Republicans being for this; Democrats being for that and nothing getting done."
Adds former Gov. Thompson: "George looks for solutions, not arguments. He's quite willing to listen to ideas proposed by others. He might have an initial opinion, but he's extremely open-minded about other people's. And, on a personal level, he's an extremely loyal person. I think that reputation speaks to why so many people from both parties find it comfortable and encouraging to work with him."
Thompson recalls a bill dealing with pharmacies that he wanted passed and Ryan, as House speaker and a pharmacist, wanted to kill. "I remember the bill was up for a vote and I was going to Chicago. I called him and got him at the speaker's podium. And even though he disagreed with me, he said, 'You're the governor and you're my friend. If this is what you want, I'll do it.' And the bill passed."
Poshard is also described as someone who strives to see his constituents' point of view. "I have taken my international students to D.C. several times, and he has met with them each time," says John Jackson, a political scientist at Southern Illinois University and a decades-long friend. "They always come away impressed with him and his dedication to public service."
Dave Gross, a Senate Democratic staffer who worked with Poshard when he chaired the Labor and Commerce Committee, says the former high school teacher always had a "long line of people in and out of his office. He was just a magnet for people's ideas, needs, wants. That, probably more than anything else, separated him from the rest of the pack."
"This guy has got a moral compass, and his motivation, I truly believe, is from a policy point of view rather than political. I remember he called me once at 11 p.m. on a Saturday night during the [1991] remap. He said, 'Dave, I'm having a press conference tomorrow morning to show southern Illinois that their interests are being diluted by this map.' He wanted me to stay up all night if need be to draft an alternate map. But he said, 'I'm driving up to help you.' That's a three-and-one-half hour drive. He got here at 2 a.m. and we stayed up for five hours drafting a new map. Then he turned around and drove right back and had his press conference. Now, I am convinced that he did this because he truly thought southern Illinois was being wronged and not out of some self-serving need to preserve his own place in Congress."
But when that plan didn't work, Poshard did all he could: He moved into another district and ran against fellow Democrat Terry Bruce. And he won, though he was outspent. He faces similar challenges in this race. By at least one calculation, Ryan can outspend Poshard 10-to-1. And Poshard is definitely campaigning outside his comfort zone.
"He's never played in this big of a ballpark,'' explains Paul Lis. "His career has been in the General Assembly and Congress, and he's never had a single contact with the Chicago media. He had no reason to deal with these people, but it's a different animal up here. I think he's realizing that."
To complicate matters further, Poshard fired his two key press officers last month, fueling rumors of a campaign in disarray.
Nevertheless, Lis, who calls himself a Democrat, likes this race.
"This has the potential to be what [Paul] Simon and [Richard] Ogilvie would have been if [Dan] Walker hadn't won the primary - a race about issues. I've always said, 'Give me a decent guy and I'll take my chances.' This year we've got two incredibly decent guys."
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