Posted on 05/24/2003 10:43:10 PM PDT by LdSentinal
In second place came Thomas J. McCracken, chairman of the RTA, who oversees the nation's second-largest public transportation system, and praised as one of the state's 10 best legislators by Chicago magazine. The field includes a retired Air Force major general and highly decorated prisoner of war, John L. Borling; lawyer and successful entrepreneur, John Cox, whose charitable organization renovates homes for the low-income elderly and disabled, and a highly successful dairy owner and stock analyst, Jim Oberweis, whose Oberweis Report ranks in the top five of all stock investment letters by the Hulbert Financial Digest.
Add to these the recurring rumors of the entry of Bob Thomas, who has statewide name recognition as former place kicker for the Chicago Bears, a former DuPage County circuit judge and now an elected Illinois Supreme Court justice. Were Thomas to run, his gridiron ID plus his following as an evangelical Protestant could start a conservative movement bonfire.
Ever since Fitzgerald bowed out, conservatives have wished for one of their number who had great financial personal resources to run. Fate has either dealt an amusing trick or a unique opportunity. Consider a 38-year-old medical doctor (from Brown) who has matched this with a business career (MBA from Stanford) that has spawned enterprises that today are valued at a combined $1 billion and have been featured in national economic journals. Moreover, he is pledged to spend up to $15 million of his fortune on his campaign. Here is an antidote to dullness. He was born in New Delhi, India, has lived in DuPage since childhood, is a devout Sikh and sports a beard that produces a lean, intense-looking visage. His name is Chirinjeev Kathuria of Oak Brook--not exactly catchy--but his life story spans the launching of Medical Oasis Inc., positioned to become the premier chain of diagnostic imaging centers in the nation, to MirCorp, which became the first company to privately launch and fund space programs (sending the first citizen explorer, Dennis Tito, into space), and which is building the world's first private space station. If elected, Kathuria would possess a monopoly of firsts, including the first U.S. senator to wear a turban.
There are many more actual and possible candidates, but the best-qualified in my judgment is Steven Rauschenberger. Among all these stellar candidates, this man, who debates with flash and glitter in the state Senate, towers as the best. The state's acknowledged budget expert by both sides of the aisle, Rauschenberger served as the brakeman for the Republican Senate, holding down spending. Yet he is far more than a dour conservative. Imaginatively hospitable to new ideas, he is adamant against crazes. As a Senate negotiator of KidCare, the state health insurance program for children in low-income families, he scored impressively, and has been called by nationally syndicated columnist Bob Novak ''a rising star.'' As a nominee, Rauschenberger would attack our federal problems as he has the state's: as a craftsman. Imagine this fiscal expert debating with rat-a-tat statistics and flourishing a pinwheel of ideas with the leading Democratic prospect: the youthful and some say overcautious (stemming from youth and inexperience) state Comptroller Dan Hynes, or challenging Maria Pappas on her votes as a member of the John Stroger/John Daley-led Cook County Board. Rauschenberger is not just an ivory tower budgeteer but is a hands-on former furniture retailer from Elgin.
If conventional wisdom holds that these are mediocre men, let fate send us more like the foregoing, who with passion and aspiration can detonate the fortress of bluster and banality.
Please refresh my memory on the guy that I mentioned. Was it Jack Ryan? I'm from New York, where 60% of the electorate share three brain cells. Is it no wonder New York lost two congressional districts after the last census?
The current problem with the crop of rinos in Illinpois, is that they won't run unless the rino machine approves them.
If the rino machine approves them then the rats will love them.
The next senator from illinois will be annointed by daley, whether a rat or a rino.
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