We're Gonna Miss Jim Edgar
Former Gov. Jim Edgar and then-GOP gubernatorial nominee Judy Baar Topinka at the State Fair in 2006. (Photo: Chicago Tribune)
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OPINION
I’m feeling pretty disillusioned about politics right now.
That’s probably not the thing you want to hear from the guy you pay for a daily newsletter. Or from a guy who has to do three hours of talk radio everyday.
After the national news last week and the divisive, toxic reaction across the political spectrum, those of us in the Illinois political world were delivered a gut punch Sunday when we received word of the passing of former Gov. Jim Edgar, who died after a battle with pancreatic cancer.
Gov. Edgar and I weren’t friends. He was nearly 40 years my senior and has accomplished more in his long career of public service than I could ever imagine. But from the moment I met him professionally* as a young reporter in Champaign in 2005, he treated me with decency, respect, and answered every stupid question I threw his way.
(*I say professionally, because I vaguely remember his making a stop at the Iroquois County Fair in the 90’s, but I can’t confirm it. Though a former Edgar staffer told me Wednesday they remembered it, too.)
Even though my bonds with the Republican Party have been severed in the Trump era, I’ve always considered myself a “Jim Edgar Republican.” Not necessarily based on policy. He was more moderate than me on some issues and more conservative than me on others.
It was because he was a model for a Republican who could get stuff done.
You see, Jim Edgar was elected Governor in 1990, about two weeks before I turned 7. So to say that I could tell you the ins and outs and minutiae of everything that happened during the Edgar administration would be a flat out lie.
What I do know, though, is that Jim Edgar’s reputation was well earned. He wasn’t perfect. No politician is. But he kept his word, he made the best decisions he could, he earned the trust of voters, and nobody cared more about our state. Nobody.
“I still have hope for this place,” he told me about Illinois after we finished a 40-minute sitdown a couple of years ago. “We can’t stop trying to make it better.”
It’s the reason he left office with a 70% approval rating. It’s the reason Republicans wanted him to run for U.S. Senate in 1998 and 2004 (when George W. Bush personally lobbied him to get in the race) and Republicans prayed he would re-enter politics to take on the already embattled Gov. Rod Blagojevich in 2006. It’s why his endorsement was gold in Republican primaries. It’s why he was a go-to for media for perspective on government, politics, and the state of the state.
Yes, Jim Edgar’s standing inside Republican politics suffered in recent years. But he knew, damnit, I know he knew, that speaking up against the ridiculousness of Bruce Rauner’s train wreck term as Governor and Donald Trump’s clowning of the GOP was the right thing to do.
But he knew that in the twilight of his time on the political stage, speaking up for what was right meant more than doing what was popular.
More than anything, though, I’ll miss Jim Edgar’s kindness. Since I launched the newsletter more than five years ago, he was always willing to take my call or return a text. Sometimes for comment, sometimes for perspective, sometimes to come on the radio, sometimes to do a random election night live stream on his iPad. (He literally never said no if it worked in his schedule.) It will never stop being a surreal memory for a kid from Iroquois County to have “Gov. Jim Edgar” pop up as an incoming call on your phone.
I hadn’t heard from him for a few months as he battled cancer and I surely wasn’t going to bother him with things as trivial as talking about the mess the state GOP was in (which bothered him to no end).
Jim Edgar was my political hero. I’m going to miss him. I know thousands more will, too.
I hope for the sake of Illinois and for the sake of the Republican Party, there can be another kind, decent, smart, trustworthy leader in our state.
We need someone who can speak the truth about state finances, spending, connect to voters, and do it with honesty and trustworthiness.
But there will never be another Jim Edgar.
