Freshman GOP senator won't seek re-election

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Apr 16, 2003 | by Nicole Ziegler Dizon, Associated Press

CHICAGO -- Republican Sen. Peter Fitzgerald announced Tuesday he will not seek a second term next year, leaving stunned party officials scrambling for a candidate as they try to hang onto the Senate.

Fitzgerald, who clashed with GOP leaders, was considered one of the most vulnerable Senate incumbents. He also faced a tough race in Illinois, where voters swept Democrats into statewide office last year while the rest of the country voted Republican.

"This is a race in a heavily Democratic state that for a Republican candidate will need full-time devotion in order to win," Fitzgerald said. He said he was unwilling to make such a commitment because it would leave him unable to be a full-time father or senator.

Fitzgerald's decision leaves Republicans with an open seat as they try to keep or add to their 51-48 edge in the Senate and re-elect President Bush.

Political strategists in both parties viewed Fitzgerald as the most vulnerable Senate Republican up for re-election in 2004. He angered the party faithful by criticizing fellow Republicans including House Speaker Dennis Hastert and doing little to bring federal projects home to Illinois.

Illinois Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka, who heads the state GOP, said she has started thinking about Fitzgerald's successor. "We are going to work together to find the best and strongest candidate available."

Democratic leaders cheered the news. "This is a huge, huge blow to Republican prospects in Illinois and certainly beyond Illinois," said Brad Woodhouse, press secretary for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. "It changes the electoral map; it levels the playing field."

Fitzgerald, heir to a banking fortune, was a little-known state senator when he spent millions of dollars in 1998 to win the GOP primary. He narrowly beat Democrat Carol Moseley Braun, the first African-American woman elected to the Senate.

Fitzgerald embarrassed Hastert and GOP former Gov. George Ryan in 2000 by publicly protesting what he said were lax bidding rules for the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield.

Among the potential GOP candidates next year are Andrew J. McKenna Jr., a Chicago businessman, state Sen. Dan Cronin and businessman James Oberweis, who lost a Senate primary in 2002.

On the Democratic side, candidates include former Chicago school board president Gery Chico, businessman Blair Hull, state Comptroller Dan Hynes, state Sen. Barack Obama, Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas, businesswoman Joyce Washington and Metamora Mayor Matt O'Shea.