Rich Williamson, Republican
candidate for U.S. Senate

By DONALD SEVENER

Rich Williamson is going through the obligatory thank-yous to officeholders, office-seekers, campaign workers, Republican stalwarts and the press assembled for the opening of his downstate headquarters in Springfield on a steamy mid-July afternoon. The office is air-conditioned, but the room is packed with people, and the lights from the television cameras put Williamson in a glare. Beads of sweat emerge on his forehead and neck.

Gamely, he reads from a list of names, but butchers the pronunciation of a local candidate's name and misidentifies one of his county campaign coordinators as a candidate for office. Finally, mercifully, Springfield's veteran Republican state Sen. John "Doc" Davidson comes to the rescue, seizing the list from Williamson and dispatching the duty in short order. Williamson looks both grateful and abashed.

He might be called the Accidental Candidate. Rich Williamson is running for the U.S. Senate much the way the travel writer of Anne Tyler's The Accidental Tourist embarked on a journey: grudgingly. In the age of made-for-television campaigns, it would be hard to find a less telegenic candidate than the affluent LaSalle Street lawyer from the north shore suburb of Kenilworth. As one person who has worked with the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate observes: "Al the Pal he's not."

Even Williamson acknowleges his charismatic shortcomings in his contest with Carol Moseley Braun, the magnetic Democratic candidate who has become something of a media darling. "If it's an issues campaign, I win," he tells the group gathered at his headquarters. "If it's a personality campaign, that makes it tough."

If this election is decided on style, the glamorous Ms. Braun goes to the Senate and the frumpy Mr. Williamson goes back to practicing law.

But if Rich Williamson is elected, he could become a senator of some substance with the potential to leave a significant imprint on U.S. economic policy, an area to which he'd be drawn by inclination and background. His experience, intellect, drive, philosophy and personality all suggest he could become an influential conservative voice in the Senate.

It's been well-documented that initially I was reluctant to get into this thing," Williamson says of his Senate race. Indeed, his announcement of candidacy came on the last day to file petitions to run in the March primary, ending a frantic search by Gov. Jim Edgar and Republican leaders for a candidate who, at the time, was widely believed to be a sacrificial offering to incumbent Democratic Sen. Alan J. Dixon, "Al the Pal," as he is affectionately, or sometimes derisively, known.

His reluctance, Williamson says, stemmed from the drain he knew a statewide campaign would have on his family life. "My son was in the hospital yesterday morning," he said, during an interview in late August, "I had to go out and give four speeches. It's a tremendous tax on your family.

"I've been lucky," he continues. "I've worked dam hard and I've been successful and we have a wonderful life. My kids walk three blocks to school and three-and-a-half to the beach, four blocks to the public tennis courts. It's a pretty nice life. And for the last nine months I haven't been able to do it. I've been involved enough to see what cost it is on your family."

But then, Williamson concedes, he was never politically inclined. "I have not been politically active," Williamson says. "In high school, my main focus was sports. In college, I majored in religion, [and] took only one political science class."

College was Ivy League — Princeton, where he also played football and was the East Coast Plebe Tournament wrestling champion. Also while at Princeton he tutored disadvantaged youngsters in Trenton, N.J., two nights a week. "They were black kids, very poor, came from broken families," he recalls. "It was just a small helping hand, but the impact you could have on them, I think, was something. I used to bring them over to Princeton and shoot baskets with them."

Athletics have obviously played a large role in his life. Ask Williamson what has driven him to be such a super- achiever and he answers: "It's fair to say that what drives you in athletics drives you otherwise; that is, the desire to achieve and do your best." Ask what mistakes or failures helped shape his character, he says: "I had a serious knee operation from football in college. I continued to play football; they used to take about a cup worth of liquid out of my knee every day after practice. I think that kind of experience gives you an understanding of how precarious things are, and therefore when you have an opportunity, you should go and try for it. And that's always driven me."

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Williamson has not lacked for opportunities; indeed, he seems to have led a rather charmed life. He grew up in Wilmette, an upper crust Chicago suburb, and graduated from New Trier High School, arguably one of the elite public high schools in the nation. After Princeton came law school at the University of Virginia, and after law school he had a job offer from the prestigious Chicago firm of Winston & Strawn. Instead, he went to work as an aide to his congressman, conservative Republican Phil Crane.

While on the congressional staff, Williamson caught the attention of Sen. Paul Laxalt, a Nevada Republican who was a close friend of Ronald Reagan and chairman of his 1976 presidential campaign. Laxalt recruited Williamson to work in Reagan's 1980 presidential race. "I worked closely with Paul," Williamson recalls, "and then Jimmy Baker asked me to come in as one of his deputies in the White House." But just three days before the inauguration, another job opened unexpectedly when Otis Bowen, the governor of Indiana, grieved by the death of his wife, told Reagan he could not accept the job of assistant to the president for intergovernmental affairs. Williamson, at age 31, became a senior adviser to the president, and one of the architects of Reagan's New Federalism, the massive effort to decentralize government and shift services to the states.

"There was a sea shift in the early '80s," Williamson recalls of Reagan's ambitious agenda. "We failed as much as we succeeded, but the major accomplishment was to reverse the relentless trend of more concentration of power in Washington. I believe now that it is better to decentralize government back to state and local governments where it's closer to the people and where you have greater accountability and greater efficiencies."

The heady experience of working in the White House and being part of a conservative revolution in Washington did not come without personal costs. There were 18-hour days and not much time for the family. Eventually, Williamson approached Reagan and told him: "Mr. President, I'm going to have to leave the White House. You know, thank you, blah, blah, blah, but in two years I haven't seen my kids awake except on Sundays, and I'm going to have to move on." The president was understanding. And then opportunity knocked again. "Literally, as I was walking out of the Oval Office, he said, 'Hey, Rich, would you like to be an ambassador?' "

He took the ambassadorship, to the United Nations offices in Vienna, Austria, where he helped negotiate to bring China into an accord on nuclear nonproliferation. Later he served as an assistant secretary of state for international affairs, during which he represented the United States in negotiations over the end of the war in Afghanistan and the withdrawal of Soviet troops.

"One of the great frustrations," says Williamson, "is that I've not been able to engage in a debate on our differences because most of the media has been far more interested in the unique demographics of my opponent, and she is doing her best to avoid the issues."

Williamson, who of course was preparing to run against Alan Dixon until Braun's stunning upset, says he thought that "there were significant differences between Dixon and myself. There are even greater differences between Braun and me." He passes up no opportunity to criticize Braun; being an underdog has turned him into attack dog. He has savaged her on matters of governmental ethics, although his ideas for campaign ethics reform sound much like hers. Like Braun, he favors stricter disclosure laws to track the influence of special interests, opposes public financing of campaigns and urges free television time for candidates to curtail the mushrooming cost of campaigns.

They also agree, at least in broad strokes, on welfare reform. Both favor some form of "workfare"; turning ownership of public housing apartments over to tenants; more money for preschool programs for disadvantaged youngsters; funding of day care services so welfare mothers can work or go to school; and a reliance on the private sector to create jobs to free people from welfare dependence.

Even so, Williamson says his contest with Braun provides voters "the clearest philosophical choice in America right here. My opponent wants you to focus on race and gender. She hasn't issued a single issue paper in this election."

Williamson's own "demographics" could be considered anything but unique, insofar as he would add to an existing abundance of wealthy, white males already in the U.S. Senate. He bristles at that observation. "In the end this isn't about race, and it isn't about gender. That's as silly as saying that Ted Kennedy and Paul Simon and Jack Kemp are all white males and therefore all the same person. They're not. You don't vote your race, and you don't vote your gender. You vote your beliefs, your philosophy."

"I have the impression he's a fairly orthodox Reagan Republican," says Adiai E. Stevenson III, former U.S. senator who was a law partner of Williamson's at the Chicago firm of Mayer, Brown & Platt.

Others have the same impression, though no one calls him an ideologue. "He's a moderate conservative," says Paul M. Green, professor at Governors State University. "He's not as liberal as Jim Thompson, but he's not part of the God and Country crowd either." Glencoe Republican state Sen. Roger Keats, who has known Williamson since each starred in high school athletics (different sports, different schools, same jock crowd), says Williamson may have been ideological at one time but now has outgrown it. "I don't think he is anymore," says Keats. "It's easy to see things in black and white when you don't have any experience. He does have a strong limited-government, freemarket philosophy." Says another observer, who has worked closely with Williamson: "He'd be like Alan Dixon — without the charisma."

In fact, on some key votes before the Senate in 1990 and 1991, tabulated by Congressional Quarterly, Williamson would have been inclined to side with Dixon, rather than with Illinois' more liberal senator, Simon, or with Braun. He, like Dixon, would have voted:

• against legislation to raise fuel efficiency standards for automobiles ("That would put hundreds of thousands of people out of work, including here in Illinois, and it would hurt auto safety because lighter cars are more dangerous.");

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• for a constitutional amendment to prohibit desecration of the American flag ("I'd have some concerns about freedom of speech. I'd have to see the exact language, but in principle I have no problem with that.");

• in favor of a requirement that clinics receiving federal funds notify parents before performing an abortion on a minor ("I have no problem with 15, 14 and 13-year-olds having a parental consent or notification requirement. I think we have to strengthen families, and families should deal with issues like that for young girls.");

• against cutting funds for the Strategic Defense Initiative ("We live in an incredibly dangerous world. Do you know how many nations have ballistic missiles? Fifty-eight. Have chemical weapons? Thirty-seven. Are threshold nuclear powers? Twenty. In a world like this, defense capability warrants continued resources.").

Williamson says he differs with Braun on school reform, on ethanol, on defense policy and on taxes. "She doesn't want you to focus on her record because it's out of the mainstream."

"I'm not a pol," Williamson says, with a curious mixture of pride and remorse. "I've never run for office before, and clearly that's a disadvantage. I've not developed the skill of the quick smile and backslapping and slipping-out of tough questions. But substantively, not many people have thought about and written about and participated in the public arena more than I have."

"He knows his shit," says Sen. Keats, admiringly.

The universal view of Williamson is that he is bright, knowledgeable and energetic. "One thing you can say about Rich Williamson is that you get a day's work out of him and the belief that if you work hard, you get ahead. He's a legitimate hard worker, a superachiever-type person." And though Williamson may lack the charisma that makes for an engaging television presence, those who know him say he is a personable, likeable person. "He's an agreeable person, easy to get along with," says Stevenson. Notes Don Totten, a former state Republican senator: "He has the ability to schmooze. Even when you differ with him, he has the warmth to get along."

Keats and others say these traits would enable Williamson to have an impact in the Senate in the manner of senators who have carved out a special niche, earned national reputations as genuine experts in certain fields, and have left a significant mark on public policy. Sam Nunn of Georgia is such a senator on defense matters, for example, as is New York's Daniel Patrick Moynihan on welfare reform, Tennessee's Al Gore on the environment and Democrat Bill Bradley of New Jersey on tax policy. "These men take being a senator seriously," says Keats. "That's the kind of senator Rich would be. He wouldn't be a highprofile media hound; he's truly a workman."

Williamson also sees himself in that mold and cites Bradley as a role model, along with neoconservative hero Jack Kemp, the U.S. housing secretary. "If there's any Republican I'd model myself after, it's Jack Kemp. He says he's a conservative with a bleeding heart. That's what I'd like to be," says Williamson.

Williamson's specialty would be economic policy. He says he would seek a seat on either the appropriations committee or the finance committee where he would have some say on tax and budget matters and on issues affecting economic growth. Keats agrees that Williamson's background in the Reagan White House and his experience in business could make him an important voice in economic policy. "His niche would be in the economic growth of the states. Rich understands what it takes to produce jobs."

"Absolutely no question," Williamson says, "my major objective is to play a role in the economy. I think people are properly frustrated that we have not seen Washington taking a more activist role during this, the longest recession since World War II." He blames the Democratic Congress and President Bush in equal measures for the 1990 budget agreement that increased taxes and, in his view, prolonged the recession. He favors pro-business tax incentives (investment tax credit, reduction of the capital gains tax, accelerated tax write-off of capital expenditures for businesses and farmers) as well as regulatory relief based on cost-benefit analyses, a strict balanced budget constitutional amendment and a presidential line-item veto. "I'm pro-business, pro-farmer, and proud of it," says Williamson.

But he's anti-politician, and proud of that, too. He recently read a New York Times Magazine article authored by Colorado U.S. Sen. Tim Wirth, in which the Democratic incumbent described, in the form of a diary, his frustrations with the Senate (the unending fundraising, the fractious partisanship, the shallowness of the media) and the reasons he decided to forgo a reelection bid.

Williamson: "One reason I'm for term limitations is that Tim Wirth is right: You've got too many career politicians. They don't know anything else. They become too desperate to keep office and forget why they're there. And they get so caught up in raising money and accommodating special interests that they never overcome that. There is a culture that Tim Wirth was rebelling against, that my opponent is a part of. She's a career politician. I think you have different values and priorities if you're a career politician. Part of that diary was Tim Wirth looking in the mirror . . . looking at what he was doing, and saying, I don't want to be that.' "

Why does Williamson want to be that, to be part of Washington? "I think ideas matter. I think you have a commitment and obligation to society, and I think my opponent is fundamentally wrong in where she thinks the country should go. It was never my plan to run for political office," Williamson says. "I was somewhat reluctant when I was first strongly encouraged to get into it, and I got into it because I passionately believe in ideas. I'll fight for those ideas for six or twelve years, and then I'm coming home. I'm not moving my family from where they live, and I'll be part of my community here in Illinois. I'll never become a part of Washington."

Donald Sevener is a Springfield writer and frequent contributor to the magazine.

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