Posted by
Juliana Johnson on Friday, June 06, 2008 12:31:13 PM
On the opening day
of the Illinois Republican Party's quadrennial state convention in
Decatur, please standby for this special message for Illinois
Republicans: Hoping your political opponents get indicted is not an
electoral strategy.
The combination of euphoria and
self-righteous indignation streaming out of GOP politicos on the
occasion of Tony Rezko's conviction on public corruption charges this
week is predictable if not well thought out.
Considering he was
elected Governor by running against that which has become the hallmark
of his administration, it is natural for Republicans to delight in the
possibility that Rod Blagojevich may soon be joining George Ryan for
spirited games of Parcheesi courtesy of federal prosecutors.
Yet,
while the media treats Gov. Blagojevich as a human pi'ata, Republicans
should resist the temptation to take their gratuitous whacks and
instead use this as an opportunity to come clean.
The fact is
that a high-ranking Republican party official was mentioned throughout
the Rezko trial and the government's star witness against Rezko was a
longtime, major donor to Republican candidates.
Instead of banal
finger-wagging and scorn-filled platitudes, Republicans should
recognize that a little contrition could go along way.
Illinoisans
have been waiting for someone--anyone--for more than a decade since our
state careened into the wilderness to acknowledge responsibility for
wrongdoing.
This weekend, at their convention, Republican
leaders should issue an open letter to Illinois voters on behalf of the
collective party that says something like this,
We do
not celebrate the Tony Rezko verdict and the corruption that persists
in state government now any more than we did under a Republican
Governor.
We understand that Republicans bear responsibility
for some of the wrongdoing that has undermined your trust and faith in
state government.
We apologize for those times when Republican
officials have failed to live up to the standards or abide by the
principles that we have set forth to define our party. We will not
excuse or tolerate bad actors within our party the way we did in the
past.
We were once a party consumed with handing out the spoils
of power. That approach led to excesses, but we are no longer that
party. Instead, we are a party dedicated to system change in
fundamental policy areas like education.
We have returned to
our roots as a party based on extending enfranchisement to the
disenfranchised and expanding available opportunities for all.
We
respectfully ask that you inform your judgment on our party and our
party's standard bearers based on who we are today, not who we were in
the past.
Such an acknowledgement would in itself be
evidence that Illinois Republicans have matured to the point where they
have learned from the party's recent past and are ready to move
confidently forward.
The party can then get to the business of
defining its constituency and declaring the policy battles to be waged
on behalf of that constituency.
This weekend, Illinois
Republicans have a choice: they can continue to be the party of
schadenfreude or they can be a party that provides true electoral
competition.