Former state attorney general Jim Ryan may be the next one into the pool in the Republican primary for governor.
Please.
Is this the best you guys can do?
Andy McKenna, Bob Schillerstrom, Bill Brady, Jim Ryan . . . it's like putting the old band back together. The old band that was a miserable failure.
Isn't Judy Baar Topinka available?
Oh yeah, she's running for comptroller!
Ryan has formed a political committee - Friends of Jim Ryan - to explore a bid and is circulating petitions.
Local
"He expects to make a final decision very soon,” a Ryan spokesman told the Chicago Tribune.
Perhaps he wants to wait for Brian Dugan to be sentenced in the Jeanine Nicarico case, in which Ryan prosecuted the wrongly convicted Rolando Cruz.
Dugan offered to plead guilty to the murder in 1995 in exchange for not getting the death penalty - an offer Jim Ryan refused.
Ryan went on to serve two terms as state attorney general because wrongful prosecutions are no impediment to political advancement in Illinois; nor to winning the Republican nomination for governor.
Ryan lost that race in 2002 to Rod Blagojevich by a 52 to 45 margin.
It's hard to imagine anyone pining for a re-run of that campaign.
Don't do it, Jim. Just because you see a weak Republican field doesn't mean you should make it weaker.
Steve Rhodes is the proprietor of The Beachwood Reporter, a Chicago-centric news and culture review.
