In Illinois, drawing a moral line in politics

[CShine]

Barney Frank survived it. So did Bill Clinton - albeit with an impeachment - and Arnold Schwarzenegger. In recent years, a growing number of politicians and political candidates have had their names tarnished by sex scandals and yet stayed in power. Yet Jack Ryan's downfall last week - which began when the Illinois Senate candidate's custody papers were unsealed Monday and culminated in his stepping out of the race on Friday - illustrates that there are limits to what voters will accept, especially in Middle America.

Now, the Republican party here is left struggling - not only to find a candidate who can mount a credible campaign against popular Democratic candidate Barack Obama, but to minimize the peripheral damage to a party that was already reeling from a different scandal. Nationally, it makes the loss of a GOP Senate seat - already likely even before the Ryan revelations - even more probable. To politicians across the country, it sends a renewed message about Americans tolerance for scandal - or the appearance of scandal. "Ryan confirms that even today there are some things you cannot survive," says Robert George, a political scientist at Princeton University. "Illinois is interesting because it's not the most conservative state, or the most liberal. It's a pretty good statement of where America is...."

This is the second time in this Senate race that sealed divorce papers have had a devastating effect. During the primary, Democratic candidate Blair Hull was leading in the polls until he released divorce files showing that one of his ex-wives had accused him of abuse and taken out a court order against him. Ryan was also pressured to unseal his files, but refused, citing protection of his 9-year-old son. When a California judge finally released the files, voters here learned that Ryan's former wife, actress Jeri Ryan, had accused him of taking her to sex clubs and asking her to have sex with him in front of others. Ryan, in the files, denied the charges, admitting only that they had gone to "one avant-garde nightclub," where they both felt uncomfortable and left. It's rare when a political sex scandal involves neither spousal cheating nor broken laws, nor even sex that actually takes place. But for Illinois residents - and in particular the conservative Republicans and downstate voters to whom Ryan was appealing - the allegations, most experts agree, were just a little too bizarre for him to survive.

"The Republican Party in Illinois has a large component of conservatives and the Christian right. As soon as those headlines came up, Ryan lost a third of his votes," says Dick Simpson, a former Chicago alderman and political scientist at the University of Illinois-Chicago. The charges were particularly damaging because Ryan had run on such a clean-cut image: successful businessman who had left investment banking to teach at an inner-city school.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0628/p03s01-uspo.html

[greatauntoftriplets]

1. The problem is that Ryan lied to repuke bigwigs...

...when they asked him point blank if anything in the divorce papers were embarassing.

He lost credibility with the repuke hierarchy. And the state repuke leader, treasurer Judy Baar Topinka, is a moderate.

[fdr_hst_fan]

2. And this is the

"Party of Family Values"! RIIIIIIGHT!

[Democat]

3. Ryan was losing already and he chose to resign of his own free will

They act like he was taken down by the sex scandal - the guy was losing already and he made a choice to drop out of the race.

Clinton and Arnold could have resigned, but they chose to fight - they were also very popular.

Ryan was a loser to start with and this gave him an excuse to leave the race and blame someone else, instead of just losing at the polls, which would have happened.

[Tarheel_Dem]

4. right on democat..........

the guy was down by double digits even before the release of his divorce records. he's now blaming the media, the judge, and of course democrats. this, from the party of "personal responsibility".....what a joke. GO OBAMA!!!!!

[lanparty]

5. Ahnold was in California ...

Ryan is in Illinois. But there does seem to be somewhat of a double standard.

Though there seems to be more stigma associated with attending swing clubs where sex is performed in public (with multiple partners) than having an affair in private (or the New York governors mansion).

I do think that they KNEW Obama was going to win anyway. Better to save the money and embarrasment.

We'll see who the Republicans choose to replace Ryan on the ticket. Likely, we'll see Keith Oberweiss.

[benburch]

6. Republicans did this to themselves.

No Democrats involved here. Obama was NOT going to go there.

His GOP campaign opponents brought up the divorce.

The very conservative Chicago Tribune sued for the records.

The GOP were the ones who pulled their support and "ordered" him to withdraw.

This is all about keeping their Ideological Purity.

[nodehopper]

7. I dunno, Illinois is not a borderline state

True, it's not the most conservative or liberal, but it consistently goes Democratic...I would think a borderline state would be a more accurate assessment of where America is.

[John_H]

8. One down, two to go. LA, FL, CO, AK,etc. DUers...got any new polls?

[fujiyama]

9. What amuses me

is the way the media is trying to make it as though he's a martyr for dropping out.

Give me a fuckin break. I'm sick of the lying whoring media. I was watching this dumb bitch on NBC (Campbell Brown I think) and she was basically asking this Illinois GOP rep all these easy questions like, "shouldn't divorce proceedings be private?". They're trying to make it as though Obama's campaign had something to do with this...or that it was dirty tricks.

[struggle4progress]

10. America can't stand a hypocrite. He should have run as a scumbag. eom

[BiggJawn]

11. Well, it's all the GOP's fault.

Hey, no sympathy. They set the "new gold standard" with Ken Starr, and if they're not smart enough to figure the Media will latch onto anything more out-of-the-ordinary than man-on-top missionary baby-making, then they deserve what they get.

Personally, I could care less if Jack and 7-of-9 were screwing on a trapeeze in front of 500 people, but then, I didn't think it was any of our business if a President was screwing around on the First Lady, either.

At least not until the ReTHUGlicans taught me that I SHOULD be concerned about the bedroom anticts of our Elected Ones....

Karmic, just plain Karmic....

[gatlingforme]

12. Ryan thought this would blow over, alot of women in Dupage

county called him a pig because of how he treated his ex-wife, Ryan also lied to his GOP supporters ( Mucky Mucks) high in the Repub. party in Illinois that what was in his divorce papers wan not embarrassing -- Topinka asked him to give up the divorce papers when he initially started to run in the primary. (Topinka is the GOP Chair. for illinois repub. party) She is also the treasurer for ILLinois. He said no to her too. When this all came out the Repub. had major egg on their face. They are still trying to recupe from George Ryan indictements.