Beating Barack at his own game

John McCain is still contemplating his running-mate choice. It appears the short list has already been formed, but let me suggest another name for the sake of conversation.

Peter G. Fitzgerald of Virginia.

Fitzgerald is actually an Illinois native, and for those of you who forgot, he was the man who made Barack Obama possible. Fitzgerald upset GOP establishment candidate Loleta Didrickson (then the state treasurer state comptroller*) in the 1998 primary before taking down the underqualified Carol Moseley Braun in the general election.

He came to Washington after serving six years in the Illinois Senate, where he and four other senators were known as the “Fab Five” as they opposed the methods of Pate Phillip.

Read this tribute Radley Balko wrote on Fitzgerald at the end of 2004:

He’s retiring because his own party has turned on him and promised to run a primary candidate against him. That’s because this particular senator decided that while he was in office he’d be his own man and vote his own conscience. He wouldn’t be a lackey for his party, he wouldn’t vote pork home to his state, and he wouldn’t do what the special interests who run his party told him to do. And that got him into trouble. …

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Fitzgerald’s crowning achievement in his brief career was his opposition to the federalization of a planned expansion of Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport (search). Congress’ seal of approval would have ensured that the $13 billion expansion forge ahead, without any input from Illinois residents, including those who owned the hundreds of homes and dozens of businesses that would have been bulldozed to make way for the new runways. …

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Fitzgerald next earned the wrath of fellow Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, a fellow Republican and probably the most powerful politician in Illinois, if not the country. Fitzgerald and Hastert first tangled over Fitzgerald’s refusal to support Hastert’s efforts to secure a glut of federal funding for the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, located in Illinois. Hastert pulled rank to secure the money, and Fitzgerald criticized him publicly for it.

Fitzgerald then refused sign a letter written by the Illinois’ congressional delegation to President Bush, which requested the White House’s help in securing federal dollars (read: pork) for the state. Fitzgerald infuriated his colleagues when he wrote in a reply, “the mere fact that a project is located somewhere in Illinois does not mean that it is inherently meritorious and necessarily worthy of support.”…

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Sen. Fitzgerald’s final sin was to nominate someone outside the state of Illinois to serve as U.S. Attorney for the northern district of Illinois, based in Chicago. In a 2002 hit piece on Fitzgerald, Chicago Sun-Times columnist Steve Neal scolded, “[t]he junior senator doesn’t think that anyone who voted for him is qualified to sit in the U.S. attorney’s chair on South Dearborn Street.”

Contrast Fitzgerald’s record as a representative to his people in Illinois to Obama’s record.  Obama stayed silent on the Claypool-Stroger primary when Obama’s poltical capital in Illinois was unmatched, he endorsed the mental midget Todd Stroger, he endorsed mafia-connected state treasurer Alexei Giannoulias (who was up on the dais last night in Denver, along with a guy who drove off a bridge and left a women in his car alone to drown), and he has aligned himself with some of the seediest elements of Illinois politics including Sen. Emil Jones Jr., who is trying to grease the skids for his son to take his seat.

Fitzgerald stood up to the pork-loving of Denny Hastert, the corruption of George Ryan, and the tolerance for politics as usual of Judy Baar Topinka.  It cost him his political career.

Fitzgerald, a far smarter man than I am, picked up his ball and left Illinois. I can’t blame him.  I wish I could do the same, but Illinois is great in spite of its government.  One day it would be great but for the suffocating, incompetent, corrupt government. Obama didn’t do a damn thing to change the environment in Illinois whether he was in Springfield or in Washington, or “community organizing” on the South Side.

Fitzgerald would be just a final piece of gamesmanship. Picture a relatively young former Senator who got fed up with the Illinois machine and tried to fight it going on the ticket opposite of his successor, a guy who rose to prominence with the backing of Emil Jones, Richard M. Daley, and a guy who scratched some backs in return.

Of course, maybe George O’Leary or Mike Barnicle should be a consideration. Embellishing a resume disqualifies you from coaching Notre Dame and plaigairizing material gets you fired from the Boston Globe, but neither will disqualify you from the Democrats’ VP nomination .

Now McCain will go the safe route and pick Tim Pawlenty or Mitt Romney, or possibly Rob Portman or Sarah Palin, but a bold pick will do more than a safe one.

UPDATE: Here’s another profile on Peter Fitzgerald’s U.S. Senate tenure by John Fund of the Wall Street Journal.  In it is the prophecy of Thomas Roeser: “He was our greatest senator since Everett Dirksen.  My fear is that he won’t find a business opportunity in Chicago and will move to some other state, where he would be a great treasure.”

Indeed. He’s settled in Virginia.

UPDATE: Save The GOP today also listed five “game-changing” veep picks: Colin Powell, John Breaux, Mike Pence, John Ashcroft, and Fitzgerald. I love the Pence and Breaux suggestions.

* UPDATE: Thanks to JD who corrected my error. Loleta Didrickson was the state comptroller. For those interested enough, here’s a decent 1998 New York Times article that ran just before the March primary. It mentioned how the Democrats were openly rooting for Fitzgerald, and then prophetically cautioned them about what they wished for.  I should also mention that Didrickson had a distinguished career in Illinois. However, she ran for Senate only after the constant urging of the “establishment,” as the common wisdom was that a conservative could not win a statewide election. I’m also sure that Fitzgerald’s maverick reputation that he (along with fellow “Fab-Fivers” Steve Rauschenberger, Chris Lauzen, Dave Syverson and Patrick O’Malley) built scared enough Republicans.