Obsessed: The Presidency and Illinois Senators Percy, Stevenson III and Simon

Robert Hartley has performed an admirable service for historians, journalists and Illinois political junkies with his new and meticulously researched book on the presidential ambitions of Charles Percy, Adlai Stevenson III, and Paul Simon, three of Illinois's most successful senators of the last seventy years. These men are sadly too often overlooked by those writing about Illinois political history. They deserve much better, and Bob Hartley's book goes a long way toward remedying that problem.Two of the three, Percy and Stevenson, were usually coy whenever asked if they had presidential ambitions. Their national prominence and political skills meant their names were constantly being raised by political pundits when the subject was broached. Only Paul Simon pursued the presidency in a more vigorous way. But as Hartley reveals, the White House was a very real and elusive quest for all three men.Hartley based his book on the personal writings of each, their papers, interviews he and others conducted with the men over the years, as well as newspapers and journal articles. In that way, he skillfully made his case for the ambitions of each, in straightforward and unembellished prose.While both Percy and Stevenson were elusive when asked about the presidency, there is no denying that all three men had the public stature and political base needed to go far if they had pressed the issue more vigorously. Both Percy and Stevenson were stymied by timing as well as political realities, specifically, other ambitious men who sought the same goal.For Percy, a serious pursuit of the 1976 presidency began in 1973 following Richard Nixon's reelection, but Nixon's impeachment in 1974 changed the picture for the next presidential run completely. Once Gerald Ford became president, he was the party's logical candidate for the 1976 campaign. That reality derailed Percy's ambitions for that year. Four years later, the political winds once again stymied his chances. With Ronald Reagan, who ran aggressively in 1976 against Ford, and George H. W. Bush, with a stellar political resume, there was very little room for someone with Percy's moderate pedigree to emerge from the pack.Stevenson also set his sights on 1976 as his best chance for the presidency. Counting as much on his father's legacy, who lost in both 1952 and 1956 to Eisenhower, as on his own political record, he tentatively sought the Democratic nomination. Stevenson possessed a solid reputation in the Senate as well as the support of Mayor Richard J. Daley, but he lacked the charisma and political sense of his father. The Democratic field was crowded that year, the first where the Iowa caucus played a significant role. Stevenson's strategy was to sit on the sidelines and wait to see if a strong candidate emerged. If none did, then with Daley's support, he counted on scoring well enough in the Illinois primary to carry him to success on the convention floor. It was a flawed strategy executed by a candidate far too timid to capture the public's attention. Jimmy Carter's victory in November 1976 deflated his dreams of the presidency.Stevenson went on to run twice for governor of Illinois, losing to the incumbent, Jim Thompson, by the narrowest of margins in 1982, then by a much larger margin in 1986 when he was forced to run as a third-party candidate after Lyndon LaRouche–backed candidates won the primaries for lieutenant governor and secretary of state. This last chapter of Stevenson's life was not explored by Hartley for it was outside the scope of the book, but I think Stevenson's failures in those elections also reveal much about why he fell short in 1976.That brings us to Paul Simon, who vigorously sought the presidency in 1988. Hartley does an admirable job of tracing his career, beginning with Simon's humble roots in Troy, Illinois, then to his passion for newspapers, which translated into a seemingly endless stream of articles and books, and also to the progressive Democrat's peculiar association with Daley and the Chicago Democratic machine. Simon was no fan of Daley, but ironically lost a primary bid for governor in 1972 to the upstart Dan Walker, whose drumbeat throughout the primary season was that Simon was tied to the corrupt Daley. But Simon never lost his idealism and in 1988 was able to run a very credible primary race for president despite launching late, never ditching either his trademark bow tie or his glasses. Those items might have been a consultant's nightmare, but Simon turned them into icons of his independence while running as a solid progressive who also believed in balanced budgets.Simon finished a respectable second in the Iowa caucuses behind Dick Gephart, and third in the New Hampshire primary, but by that time his campaign war chest was empty. He skipped Super Tuesday for financial reasons but won the Illinois primary. When he came in fourth in Wisconsin, he accepted the inevitable and then endorsed Michael Dukakis, who went on to lose in the general election to George H. W. Bush.During our jaunt through Illinois politics from the 1950s through the 1980s, Hartley gives us a glimpse of many other prominent Illinoisans along the way, including Paul Douglas, Alan Dixon, and consultants Gene Calahan and David Axelrod.What is Hartley's next project? Percy, Stevenson and Simon were not Illinois's only sons with presidential aspirations. Governor Jim Thompson had dreamed of the White House since his childhood, but political timing and potential Republican opponents were never made it possible for him to pursue that dream. Rod Blagojevich, who could probably win a poll for the state's worst governor ever, also shared that dream, a pipe dream in his case. Finally, speculation abounds for our current governor, J. B. Pritzker. It doesn't hurt that he sits on a mountain of Pritzker cash. Will timing and fate be kinder to our current governor?