Free Republic

He's the most happy fella. Jack Ryan, 43, the North Shore investment banker, is running for the U.S. Senate on a platform of happiness and light. ''I just feel so much love in this room right now,'' Happy Jack declared at his campaign kickoff the other day at Hales Franciscan High School, where he gave up an investment banking career to teach a few courses. ''Every major religion says that happiness comes not from seeking our own fulfillment but from seeking the fulfillment of others,'' he said. ''We've got to start looking out for one another's happiness." Ryan, who has...

Steve Neal, Chicago's premiere political columnist for decades, famous for his encyclopedic knowledge of history and political lore, for endlessly swapping stories with political junkies and for his books that ranged from a biography of Wendell Wilkie to the correspondence between Eleanor Roosevelt and Harry Truman, died Wednesday at his Hinsdale home. He was 54 and had been hospitalized overnight this week at Northwestern Hospital for a heart problem, his family said. Hinsdale police said they responded to a “carbon monoxide alarm’’ Wednesday afternoon at the home. Mr. Neal was among the city's most savvy political analysts, but unlike many...

In his classic Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville warned about the "tyranny of the majority." The French political scholar, who toured the United States in 1831, observed that few precautions had been taken to control the unlimited power of direct democracy. "If ever the free institutions of America are destroyed," de Tocqueville wrote, "that event may be attributed to the unlimited authority of the majority, which may at some future time urge the minorities to desperation." This is what is happening in California. The recall campaign against Gov. Gray Davis is an assault on democratic institutions. Led by right-wing...

Hilarious Hillary... How much of a PR nightmare must one endure before someone pulls the plug? Check out the latest reaction from Americans polled by ABC NEWS. Hillary loses ground if pitted against Bush in every region of the country. But this didn't stop her from going on TV last night and giving more non-answers with 20/20's Barbara Walters. Former Clinton insider who mysteriously had her article critical of Hillary spiked a couple of weeks ago is out today with kind of a revamped version of it. Susan Estrich firmly believes that the Clinton machine is sucking up all of...