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Ditka among GOP names for Illinois Senate seat By MAURA KELLY LANNAN The Associated Press 7/10/2004, 8:38 p.m. CT CHICAGO (AP) — Former New Orleans Saints coach Mike Ditka is being considered as a Republican candidate to replace Jack Ryan in the race for the U.S. Senate in Illinois. Advertisement The other name making the rounds a day after state Sen. Steve Rauschenberger declined to run include Andrea Grubb Barthwell, the Bush administration's former deputy drug czar who resigned Friday to explore the possibility of a candidacy. House Speaker Dennis Hastert smiled Friday when asked what Illinois Republicans are looking...

SOUTHERN ILLINOIS -- Da Bears or Da Senate. Most conversations involving fans of the Chicago Bears eventually revert to the 1986 Super Bowl championship and their ringleader, Coach Mike Ditka. "Iron Mike," as he is known, won more than 100 games for the Bears from 1982 to 1992 after a distinguished playing career with the Monsters of the Midway. Now 64, Ditka is making news outside the gridiron. It has been speculated that he may enter the political arena. The prize -- a U.S. Senate seat now up for grabs after incumbent Republican Peter Fitzgerald announced he would not seek...

The Illinois Republican Party took another body blow Thursday, as the candidate considered the favorite by a number of GOP leaders dropped out of the running to replace U.S. Senate nominee Jack Ryan. State Sen. Steve Rauschenberger said his late entry into the race would have made it nearly impossible to raise the money required to compete effectively against Democrat Barack Obama... Aurora dairy owner Jim Oberweis argues that his second-place primary finish makes him the "logical" choice. But many Republicans remain uneasy over TV commercials Oberweis ran during the primary attacking President Bush's immigration reform plans. Oberweis insists he...

Rauschenberger takes pass on Senate raceBy Rick Pearson Tribune political reporter Published July 8, 2004, 4:00 PM CDT State Sen. Steve Rauschenberger took himself out of the running today to replace Jack Ryan as the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, sending the GOP scrambling once again for a candidate to challenge Democrat Barack Obama. In a brief statement, the Elgin Republican and 11-year state senator said he was grateful for the support he has received for his potential candidacy, but added, "Right now my full attention is needed in the Illinois Senate."

The Illinois Republican Party is under fire from grass-roots groups who say the party forced U.S. senatorial candidate Jack Ryan to withdraw from the race, and they want his name returned to the ballot.     Mr. Ryan, who won the March Republican primary, stepped aside June 25 after details of his sex life were revealed in previously sealed divorce records. He was to run against Democratic state Sen. Barack Obama.     "Jack Ryan was under pressure from the state party to resign. They pushed him out, and we want him back," said Doug Ibendahl, who heads a 20,000-member group called the Republican...

I just watched Hannity interview Jack Ryan, former Republican candidate for the Senate from Illinois. Sean made some amazing challenges at the end of the interview.

The "public's right to know" has received a thorough vetting the past couple of weeks with release of a U.S. Senate candidate's sealed divorce records, the contents of which were sufficiently embarrassing to cause him to withdraw from the race. Republican candidate Jack Ryan's divorce files, which were opened at the behest of the Chicago Tribune and a television station, revealed that Ryan had taken his wife to a "sex club" and asked her to have sex with him in front of others. Ryan and his former wife sought to keep the particulars of their divorce private; just days after...

Consider this. If only actress and "Star Trek: Voyager" alum Jeri Ryan had been into getting jiggy with her husband in sex clubs, three distinct groups of people would be very happy. First, obviously, there would be Mr. Ryan himself. Not only would he not have been forced to quit his bid for Illinois senator, he would have gotten to, well, you know with Jeri Ryan in a really funky setting - which, however tacky that might be to us, is what he wanted from the get-go. Second, the Kerry campaign would be ecstatic because he wouldn't be facing incredible...

OPINION -- With the June 25 announcement by conservative Republican Jack Ryan that he was dropping out of the U.S. Senate race for Illinois, the seat falls to Democrat candidate Barack Obama virtually by default. But who is Barack Obama? Is the charming, handsome, articulate 42-year-old state senator who dominated a field of six in the March 16 Democrat primary with 53 percent of the vote, the herald of a “new kind of politics” or merely a new voice calling for the same old, racist, urban welfare politics the Democrat Party has promoted for forty years? On June 4, New...

<p>Over 90% of the RYP members that contacted us after Jack Ryan's decision to end his campaign for the U.S. Senate, have expressed their belief that Jack should have continued with his campaign on the issues. We have heard nearly universal disappointment and outrage that a few in our local GOP were allowed to gin up media pressure for him to withdraw - even in the face of continued strong support from national Republican leaders.</p>

I'm in the midst of preparing a letter to the editor to the Chicago Tribune concerning their recent editorial from June 25 arguing why they decided to go to court to obtain the Ryan's child custody records. I recognize that not everyone here will agree with my thoughts, but I would like to seek your feedback on my letter. I appreciate your comments. Thanks! Here's a first VERY ROUGH draft: Dear Voices of the People: The Chicago Tribune claims in its editorial, “Why the Tribune went to court”, that court files are open unless a compelling interest tips the balance...

CHICAGO - Even though he is not required to under election laws Jack Ryan is promising to return up to 1.5 million in campaign funds he raised for his now defunct Senate campaign. Ryan had planned on running a tough U.S. Senate race from Illinois until a judge decided to unseal "sealed" records from the Ryan custody hearings between Ryan and actress ex-wife Jeri Ryan. The former Mrs. Ryan had made unsubstantiated allegations about Jack taking her to sex clubs on trips to New York and Paris. Politicians from Hillary Clinton to former Illinois Governor George Ryan have made practice...

PHOENIX, Ariz. (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry (news - web sites) on Tuesday rejected any suggestion that he release records of his 1988 divorce, calling it old history that had nothing to do with anyone else. "I have no intention of doing that at all," Kerry said during a campaign stop in Phoenix, Arizona, when a reporter asked if he would release the papers from his divorce from his first wife Julia Thorn. In a U.S. senate race in Illinois, Republican candidate Jack Ryan quit his campaign last week after the Chicago Tribune and other media sued to...

Today: June 30, 2004 at 7:52:05 PDT Ex-Candidate Jack Ryan to Offer Refunds ASSOCIATED PRESS CHICAGO (AP) - Former Republican Senate candidate Jack Ryan is offering refunds to donors following last week's collapse of his campaign amid embarrassing sex allegations. Ryan had raised about $1.5 million since winning the Republican nomination, said Jason Miller, who managed Ryan's campaign. He said donors to the general election fund will be informed of Ryan's decision next week. The campaign has not released figures on how much has already been spent, but Miller said Ryan will spend his own money for any bills and...

Jack Ryan watched his young career as a Senate candidate go up in smoke because the Chicago Tribune sued to bust the seal on his divorce papers from his wife, "Star Trek" actress Jeri Lynn Ryan. In the papers, Mrs. Ryan asserted that her husband pressured her to have sex with him in public in swinging sex clubs. Republicans wanted him gone. He had lied to conservative journalists and GOP supporters alike when he said there were no potential skeletons in his closet. Republicans wouldn't stand for that. Bill Clinton now claims a "badge of honor" because independent counsel Kenneth Starr...

CHICAGO (CBS 2) Jack Ryan's campaign flameout over sex club charges has left state Republicans in political paralysis. With the election just four months away, no big names are coming forward to face-off against popular Democrat nominee Barack Obama. Former four-term Illinois Governor Jim Thompson, former Lieutenant Governor Corinne Wood and current corruption-busting federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald are just some of the names being thrown around in a desperate search by Republicans for a candidate willing to run for the U.S. Senate. Investment banker Jack Ryan's resignation last Friday leaves a likely suicide mission for whomever volunteers to pick up...

The unsealing of divorce court records of a Republican U.S. Senate candidate in Illinois could impact the presidential aspirations of Sen. John Kerry, who has his own divorce records under seal in Massachusetts. The publication of accusations made by Jack Ryan’s ex, actress Jeri Ryan, led him to withdraw from the senate race last week. Both Ryans had asked that the records -- in which Mrs. Ryan claimed her husband had tried to get her to go to sex clubs and have sex with him while others watched -- be kept secret. But, at the behest of the Chicago Tribune,...

IT may not be illegal for a man to ask his wife for sex in front of strangers in a nightclub with cages and whips suspended from the ceiling, but it is inadvisable if he is considering a run for the US Senate. Jack Ryan, an improbably tall, dark and handsome candidate for a Senate seat in Illinois, twisted in the wind for days last week, unwilling to admit he had done anything wrong after the release of divorce papers in which his former wife, a steely blonde Star Trek actress, described how he had taken her to “explicit sex...

Okay, there is a grassroots campaign to draft Mike Ditka to become State GOP Chairman. How about Ditka as a replacement for Jack Ryan on the ballot instead?

WASHINGTON (AP) - Illinois Republican senatorial candidate Jack Ryan, his candidacy in turmoil over sex club allegations, decided to quit his quest for Congress on Friday. "I am today withdrawing from the race," he said in a statement prepared by his campaign. "What would take place, rather, is a brutal, scorched-earth campaign - the kind of campaign that has turned off so many voters, the kind of politics I refuse to play." Politics is a cruel mistress. If Jack Ryan were a masochist instead of an exhibitionist, he might be having the time of his life right now. The 44-year-old...