PAT BRADY FLUNKS THE UNFORMITY OF THOUGHT TEST

5/7/13

Illinois state GOP Chairman Pat Brady resigned yesterday, citing his wife’s now years long battle with cancer and his desire to spend more time with her and their children during this struggle.   Had Mr. Brady not resigned, however, he would have been fired; he beat back an effort in March of this year to remove him as party chief, but only temporarily.  As part of the deal that kept him in his job, a committee was formed to find a new chairman by the middle of this month.  (See my 3/10/13 piece, PAT BRADY SURVIVES, MIKE MADIGAN SHRUGS.)   Pat Brady didn’t jump; he was pushed.

And why was Pat Brady effectively fired from his job at the helm of the Hindenburg we call the Illinois GOP?   Was it because his much touted “Fire Madigan” campaign in the 2012 elections, which urged voters to relieve Speaker Mike Madigan of his job by voting Democratic, resulted in Speaker Madigan’s, and Senate President John Cullerton’s, emerging from those elections with veto proof super majorities?  Was it because the GOP blew a big lead in the governor’s race in 2010?   No; Mr. Brady is not being fired for incompetence or, more charitably, in a political version of the “fire the coach when things go wrong” approach to team management.   It wasn’t Mr. Brady’s inability to do anything to restore the GOP’s fortunes in this state that got him fired.   He was forced out because he had the temerity to express a personal preference that gay marriage be legalized in the Land of Lincoln.  One wonders how much Mr. Brady’s facing his wife’s mortality, and watching her suffer, for the last two years had to do with his change of attitude, or his willingness to go public with a longstanding opinion, on the issue of gay marriage, but I digress.   Mr. Brady’s open-mindedness on this issue was entirely too much for the self-styled “conservatives” who form the core of the GOP of this state and demand uniformity of thought.  So Mr. Brady had to go.

There is much discussion of who will replace Mr. Brady as party chairman.   One thing is for sure…purity of thought will transcend competence in the decision making process.  Maybe Jim Oberweis, the perennial loser in his efforts for higher office until he found a state Senate seat he could nearly literally buy, and the man who led the charge against Mr. Brady’s apostasy, will wind up the job; he clearly wants it and has plenty of money.  And such an outcome would surely be fitting.  But, ultimately, it doesn’t matter….

The GOP in the state of Illinois is hopeless.

See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for further illumination on how things work in Chicago and Illinois politics.