It’s good to have dreams. Dreams inspire hope.
Perhaps Kathy Salvi, the new chair of the state Republican Party, wants to inject some degree of belief in GOPsters that the impossible — making “Illinois red again” — is a possibility, which she said after her election. Then again, one can dream too big.
The Mundelein-area resident must be in a substantial dream-like state when it comes to today’s political realities. Democrats hold super-majorities in both chambers of the Illinois legislature. They occupy all state offices, along with 14 of the state’s 17 congressional districts.
In Lake County, once deep red, the County Board is now ruled by a majority of Democrats; all countywide offices are held by Democrats. In other counties in the region, like reliably red DuPage, Democrats have been making inroads.
In the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, former President Donald Trump lost Illinois by 17 percentage points. Once facing a bleak rematch between Trump and President Joe Biden, state Democrats have become energized with Vice President Kamala Harris now the likely presidential candidate.
The Nov. 5 election again doesn’t look good for Republicans. Salvi can only dream of picking up seats in the legislature this election cycle. Yet, Illinois needs a GOP counter to Democrats riding roughshod over the Land of Lincoln.
Salvi graduated from Carmel Catholic High School in Mundelein, became a lawyer and was a former Lake County assistant public defender before entering private practice. She ran unsuccessfully for Congress in the 8th District in 2006, and was trounced by Democrat U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth in the 2022 Senate race after winning the GOP primary.
Her husband, Lake County-based personal injury attorney and former Republican state representative Al Salvi, also is a veteran of the political wars. He ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in 1996, and secretary of state in 1998.
Kathy Salvi calls Illinois and her party in a state of “blue funk.” The party actually is in a state of blue flux. Since 2001, Republicans have had 10 different party chairs.
The latest to call it quits was Chair Don Tracy of Springfield, who relinquished the post last month citing intra-party squabbles. Moderate Republicans (those scoffed-at RINOS, Republicans in name only) have been marginalized, while those on the ideological right have commandeered the party of Abe Lincoln.
Holding the party back is the insistence issues of reproductive freedom and gun violence prevention mean nothing to Prairie State voters. Illinois stands as a national beacon for abortion rights.
Most Americans value leaving reproductive health decisions to women and their medical teams. It’s been shown over and over — such as in conservative Kentucky and Kansas — that when given the chance to vote on keeping abortion rights, voters do so overwhelmingly. Even in Ohio, home to Sen. J.D. Vance, the Republican vice presidential candidate.
Once, moderate Republicans statewide and in the region supported a woman’s right to choose, during those past days of Roe vs. Wade when it was thought the U.S. Supreme Court codified reproductive rights. Those candidates are orphaned to history as a new wave of ultra-right Republicans take control of the state party apparatus.
Until Illinois Republicans see reproductive rights as a major issue voters care about, the party will continue to watch as more and more suburbanites, especially women, desert the GOP, leaving them with a shrinking base far downstate.
It seems the party wants to adhere to the aging philosophy of Barry Goldwater, the Arizona senator who was the party’s losing 1964 presidential candidate: “Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
That tack hasn’t won them many elections in the last decade. Instead, they should take a gander at what another son of Illinois, Democrat Adlai Stevenson — known as the “Man from Libertyville” — had to say when he ran for president: “What counts now is not just what we are against, but what we are for. Who leads us is less important than what leads us.”
Illinois needs a strong Republican Party. It needs the loyal opposition to keep Democrats from further hijacking the state. Until the party starts listening to voters, Kathy Salvi’s red-state dreams and schemes may not come true.
Charles Selle is a former News-Sun reporter, political editor and editor.
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Twitter: @sellenews