It’s hard to believe that only seven years ago the state of Illinois had a Governor, one U.S Senator, a majority congressional delegation, Treasurer and the State Senate all Republican. Now the Republican Party of Illinois can’t field a creditable candidate to run for the United States Senate in a Presidential year!
Is it that the national Republican message of the last 27 years of a smaller government, lower taxes and more personal responsibility is getting old? Maybe it’s the stand on life that the people don’t like, or the stand in favor of the second amendment? No, I don’t think so, as a matter of fact if the Republican Party in Illinois were known for those issues, it would be flourishing. It’s the fact the party doesn’t stand for anything that they’ve lost voters, specifically the Reagan Democrats and the conservatives that came with the Reagan revolution.
Voters in Illinois mistakenly thought that because they were Republican, the state party stood for conservative values. The trouble was Illinois skipped the Reagan Revolution; liberal Jim Thompson was there to stop the party from following the national movement to the right. This rightward movement led to the Republican landslide in 1994 and the Democrats loss of the Illinois General Assembly. The leader of the Democratic Party saw the trend, and recruited candidates that mirrored the voters. The Republican Party leadership did exactly the opposite, recruiting more liberal candidates, even in areas that historically were very conservative. Mysteriously the party seemed to intentionally antagonize the new conservative voters that came with their majority by moving farther to the left. Along with their traditional issues, conservatives wanted to fight corruption. That was not on the agenda for the Republican leadership. They had power before Reagan came into office, why should they listen to these new voters? Illinois was different they said and they made the calculation their voters would just go to the polls and pull the Republican ballot instead of letting the Democrat win. They were wrong, conservatives stayed home.
That brings us to where we are today. In Illinois, the party is all but dead and still it has not taken the first step of rebuilding by trying to bring most of the grassroots activists and their followers on board. In 1998 Peter Fitzgerald’s statewide grassroots organization, (put in place by Al Salvi in his primary victory) was the main reason Senator Fitzgerald was able to defeat the party, they were already in place and had already won an election. Believe it or not it has been over 10 years and these people are still out there working for conservatives. In the last Republican primary for Governor over 50% of the votes went to conservative candidates with Jim Oberweis getting just under 32% and Senator Brady getting over 18% both campaigns used this group and NONE were contacted by the party to help in the General election’s. And we all know how that election turned out!
The ILGOP has to rebuild but it can’t without its base. Weather the old guard likes it or not the party’s base is conservative and wants a party that stands for something. The national platform is a good place to start. It won’t be easy, conservatives have given their votes and time, and they have worked hard for the party and have consistently been burned. It will take more than just promises to fix the problem.
A good start would be to hire a person dedicated just to Grassroots organizations, This would show that the party is ready to listen and work with them on their issues, in addition it will allow the party to reach out to them when ground troops are needed. One person who can be easily contacted, with the ear of the party chairman, and who can be their voice at the State Central Committee meetings. Until the base is brought into the fold the Illinois Republican party cannot hope to return to power