Good Grief! An ethical politician?

Senator minces no words on GOP
Fitzgerald says party in Illinois is in shambles
By Rudolph Bush
Chicago Tribune staff reporter
Published September 19, 2004

WASHINGTON -- As he prepares to retire from the U.S. Senate and Illinois GOP politics, Sen. Peter Fitzgerald is leaving a party in such deep disarray that he believes it cannot survive in its current form.

Though he holds the highest elected office of any Illinois Republican, Fitzgerald has long been estranged from the state party leadership and blames it for now bringing the GOP low by focusing on profit and political gain at the expense of public service.

"The Republican Party cannot survive if we are not perceived as the more ethical party," because Democrats have a strong numerical advantage in the state, Fitzgerald said. "We have to throw the money changers out of our party, and its leadership must come from the ranks of those who are in politics for principled reasons."

For Illinois Republicans recent years have been dark, from the licenses for bribes scandal that brought down Gov. George Ryan to the 2002 election that left them with only one state office and finally a battle to retain the Senate seat being vacated by Fitzgerald that has been fraught with embarrassments and controversy.

Throughout, Fitzgerald has been critical, slamming the party for ethical failings even as GOP leaders tried to pull the pieces together.

Many top Illinois Republicans are pleased to see Fitzgerald leave office. During his tenure he has drawn the ire of state GOP leaders from Chairman Judy Baar Topinka to Republican National Committeeman Robert Kjellander and even U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert. Many in his own party have publicly dismissed him as an inflexible ideologue unwilling to compromise even to better the interests of the state.

Last year, when he announced his decision to not seek re-election after one term, Fitzgerald told supporters it had become difficult for Republicans to win in an increasingly Democratic state. But in an interview last week, however, he said the party can succeed as long as it fields candidates perceived as rising above the "money talks" tradition of Illinois politics.

That stance steams many Illinois GOP leaders, who question why Fitzgerald decided not to run if he now contends that he is the very model of the kind of Republican who can win big elections in the state.

"It's disingenuous for him to talk about a fractured party when he has done nothing but divide it with his verbal assault," said Topinka's spokesman Jason Gerwig. "Basically what you have is somebody who took their ball and went home."

Topinka declined to comment personally, saying she doesn't intend to dignify Fitzgerald's remarks.

Several GOP leaders wondered why Fitzgerald cares about the party at all, saying he plans to permanently settle in Virginia after he leaves the Senate. A spokesman for Fitzgerald said the senator hasn't yet decided whether he will return to Illinois.

Fitzgerald acknowledges he has been marginalized in the party, in part because he has called attention to a "pay-to-play" mentality he says emerged during Ryan's administration.

"We have too many people in and around our party's leadership solely to make money," he said. "The money makers ... really came into their own during the George Ryan administration. Big contributors were rewarded with big contracts, with big leases, with no-bid deals that fleeced the taxpayers."

The indictments and trials that exposed corruption within the party left it so weakened that Republicans splintered, with moderates more and more frequently supporting Democratic positions, he said.

"The problem is there really is only one party in Illinois; it's the Democratic Party and there are Republicans who quietly and tacitly ally themselves with Democrats," he said.

But it was the treatment of Senate candidate Jack Ryan, he believes, that exposed the party's weakness. When embarrassing details of Ryan's divorce came to light, Topinka didn't defend him publicly, and he finally abandoned the race, saying he couldn't fight both Democrats and his own party.

Fitzgerald believes Topinka didn't support Jack Ryan because she wanted her own political supporter, wealthy Republican rainmaker Ron Gidwitz, to be the party's candidate.

It was a choice of money over party, and was based on Topinka's own interest in running for governor in 2006, Fitzgerald charged.

When Gidwitz fell through as a candidate, Republicans were spurned by a long list of other possible replacements until conservatives prevailed upon the party's leadership to go out of the state and import Maryland radio talk show host Alan Keyes.

Passionate in his opposition to abortion and for his desire to mix religion and government, Keyes has set a deliberate course of inflaming controversy and made several in the party squirm over impolitic comments about everybody from Democratic opponent Barack Obama to the gay daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney.

Fitzgerald said he doesn't know how Keyes ultimately became the party's candidate, but he believes his selection says a great deal about what is happening within the GOP.

"It just shows there are two completely different wings of the Republican Party," Fitzgerald said.

The wings aren't the two sides of the abortion debate as the candidates seem to suggest, but "it's instead between those who are in politics for reason of principle and those who are in politics for the reason to make money."

The party's leadership is interested in retaining power and believes it can do that by offering up moderate candidates who can find common cause with Democrats, he said.

Kjellander dismissed Fitzgerald's entire assessment, saying that while the party was damaged by Ryan's administration, Topinka has pulled it together.

"Over the last year there have been a lot of polls that put Republicans in a very good light," he said.

President Bush is narrowing the gap with Sen. John Kerry in Illinois, and Topinka looks to fare well in a head-to-head matchup with Gov. Rod Blagojevich in 2006, Kjellander insisted.

He notes that Topinka has raised $18 million for the state party, and Republicans can afford to push the president's come-from-behind campaign in Illinois and support statewide candidates.

"When we put forward good candidates we're in the game," he said.

Fitzgerald and Kjellander agree that one strong candidate for governor in 2006 could turn the party around. Of course, they disagree who that might be, with Kjellander and other state GOP leaders backing Topinka and Fitzgerald pushing state Sen. Steve Rauschenberger (R-Elgin).

It's a race that Fitzgerald believes will determine whether the party can ever separate itself from George Ryan's legacy and emerge from the depths it finds itself in.

"We're going to have to regain the advantage on ethics and integrity," he said.