It’s increasingly obvious that Illinois suffers from a crisis of leadership. With the last governor in prison, the current one under federal investigation and the three most powerful elected officials mired in political mud, Illinoisans have no one to look to for hope that we can overcome our state’s financial and social troubles.

In this month’s cover story, Kristen McQueary, columnist and reporter for the Chicago-area SouthtownStar, catalogs some of the political players who could emerge to fill that leadership void in the future. As she points out, it’s possible — maybe even likely — that someone not on our list could rise to prominence from someplace no one expected. After all, it’s unlikely that current Gov. Rod Blagojevich or U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (more on him later) would have been included in such an inventory a decade ago. Our list is simply a snapshot in time, not an endorsement of anyone, with the intent to provide some starting points for discussion.

Kristen’s look to the future sparked some thoughts of my own about what kind of leadership we need. I was inspired by Celia Sandys’ enthralling documentary about her grandfather that aired recently on Public Broadcasting Service channels. Who better to lead Illinois out of this crisis than the world’s last Renaissance man, the author, painter, venerable statesman and orator Winston Churchill?

So I pored over several books and Internet sites to find out what the British Bulldog might have to say. Let’s listen in:

“Politics is not a game. It is an earnest business.”

Not here, Sir Winston. It has devolved into a contest of weirdness, wits and will among the state’s three most powerful politicians, Blagojevich, House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President Emil Jones Jr. A chess match is too genteel of an analogy. King of the Hill fits better, where each is trying to knock the others off their footing to gain control for himself. Meanwhile, their focus is on winning their own concocted game, not on displaying leadership in trying times.

“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”

At the risk of channeling Rodney King, doesn’t cooperation generally achieve more results than confrontation? Because Blagojevich, Madigan and Jones can’t agree on even the simplest of agendas, they have wasted the incredible opportunity of having one party — in this case the Democrats — control the governor’s office and the legislature. Their relationships have become so strained that they can’t even sit down and negotiate. It’s true that Churchill also said, “I have always felt that a politician is to be judged by the animosities he excites among his opponents,” but as fellow Democrats, Blagojevich, Madigan and Jones aren’t opponents; they’re more like feuding family members. And from some dim memory comes another quotation — not by Winston or Rodney, but I can’t recall who — that goes something like: “In a family squabble, it doesn’t matter who’s at fault. Just fix it.” Otherwise, the damage to the family can be permanent.

“The nation will find it very hard to look up to the leaders who are keeping their ears to the ground.”

It seems our legislature and governor waste most of their time — when they’re not bashing one another — worrying about how their policy decisions will play in Peoria (or Belvidere or Wheaton or Mt. Vernon) rather than following Churchill’s observation that “life is presented to us as a simple choice between right and wrong.”

So it naturally follows that we end up with public servants who care only about being safely re-elected or remaining ensconced in their powerful positions, not about improving the lot of their state’s citizens.

The lack of leadership in Illinois must be as obvious to Blagojevich, Madigan and Jones as it is to the rest of us. Yet they don’t seem to have any impetus to move together in a more positive direction. “So they go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent.”

Perhaps the dynamic will shift somewhat when Senate Democrats choose a replacement for Jones, who announced his upcoming retirement last month. But they would have to look for a leader who can moderate the conflict between Blagojevich and Madigan, and that could prove to be a tough search. 

Maybe more of Churchill’s words can guide them:

“This is no time for ease and comfort. It is the time to dare and endure,” Churchill said. “You can measure a man’s character by the choices he makes under pressure.”

And to the inevitable argument that the philosophies of a 20th century statesman don’t apply to 21st century problems, Churchill might have replied, “The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.”

From the archives

This month’s edition also contains an article that Barack Obama wrote for Illinois Issues in 1988, when he was a community organizer in Chicago, long before he became a state senator, U.S. senator and presidential candidate.

We wanted to republish it to illustrate Obama’s early thoughts and writings and to show how his Illinois roots helped shaped his proposals for a national agenda.

To be fair in this election year, we also looked for Illinois references in early writings of Sen. John McCain and weren’t able to find any direct parallels. But we did discover an article McCain wrote for U.S. News and World Report in 1973 about his experience as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. It can be found on that magazine’s Web site. The link also is available in my editor’s note on the Obama article.

Our decision to republish the Obama article is neither an endorsement of Obama nor of McCain. We remain, as we have been since our founding in 1975, nonpartisan.

Thank you

Inside the front cover of the print magazine, and on our Web site, is a list of people and organizations who have graciously donated to Illinois Issues this past year.

We are profoundly grateful for their support. Unlike most other publications, we are a not-for-profit business. A large portion of our funding comes from the University of Illinois at Springfield through its Center for State Policy and Leadership, and we also deeply appreciate that financial assistance. But beyond that, we are expected to be self-sustaining through our subscriptions, newsstand sales, advertising sponsorships and donations.

Without all of those supporters, we would cease to exist. Thanks to all of you who continue to make the state’s leading public affairs magazine a reality.

Dana Heupel can be reached at heupel.dana@uis.edu.

Illinois Issues, September 2008