Jack Ryan (Senate candidate)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- This page is about the U.S. politician; for other uses, see Jack Ryan.
- For other Illinois politicians sharing the same last name, see Jim Ryan (politician) (former state Attorney General) and George Ryan (former Governor).
Jack Ryan (born circa 1960) is a Republican from the state of Illinois who was forced to withdraw his Senate candidacy due to an alleged sex scandal involving his ex-wife, actress Jeri Ryan.
In the 2004 Illinois Senate race, he ran for the United States Senate, hoping to succeed retiring Republican Peter Fitzgerald. On March 16, 2004, he won the Republican primary, thus pitting him against Democrat Barack Obama. However, after reports of embarrassing allegations about Ryan's sexual past, he withdrew his candidacy on June 25, 2004, and officially filed the documentation to withdraw on July 29, 2004.
Contents |
[edit] Biography
Ryan spent his childhood in Wilmette, Illinois with his five siblings, and attended New Trier High School. He graduated from high school in 1977 and went on to Dartmouth College, where he graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. He earned his MBA from Harvard Business School, and his JD from Harvard Law School. After this, he worked for Goldman Sachs as an investment banker, first in New York City, and then in the Chicago branch.
In 2000, after Goldman Sachs went public, Ryan's net worth was in the hundreds of millions. He retired from Goldman and taught part-time at an inner-city Chicago Catholic parochial school, Hales Franciscan High School. He later became a full-time teacher at the school.
Note that Jack Ryan is not related to Jim Ryan, to former Governor George Ryan, Boston Globe sportswriter Bob Ryan, and MLB pitcher Nolan Ryan. ([1]). "Ryan" is a fairly common Irish surname.
[edit] Platform and campaign
Ryan is a proponent of across-the-board tax cuts and tort reform, an effort to limit payout in medical malpractice lawsuits. He is a proponent of school choice and an approach that stresses accountability in education and freedom.
Controversially, in 2004, Ryan had Justin Warfel (a campaign worker) follow his opponent, Barack Obama, twenty four hours a day and record everything he did in public on videotape. Warfel did not follow Obama into his office or private residences, but he recorded Obama at all other times. Warfel also heckled Obama by yelling questions at him in public. The tactic backfired when many people, including Ryan's supporters, criticized this activity. Ryan eventually withdrew Warfel but did not apologize ([2]).
[edit] Demise of the campaign
Ryan married actress Jeri Ryan in 1991; together they have a son, Alex Ryan. They divorced in 1999 in California, and the records of the divorce were sealed at their mutual request. Five years later, when Ryan's Senate campaign began, the Chicago Tribune newspaper and WLS-TV, the local ABC affiliate, sought to have the records released. Both Ryan and his wife agreed to make their divorce records public; but not the custody records, claiming that they could be harmful to their son if released.
Ryan won all 102 Illinois counties in the March primary. He even won in Peoria County, home of Republican Representative Ray LaHood, leader of the Illinois congressional delegation, who had endorsed and vigorously campaigned for one of Ryan's primary opponents, state senator Andy McKenna.
On June 22, 2004, the California judge in the case agreed to release the custody files. The decision generated much controversy because it went against both parents' direct request and because it generally reversed the earlier decision to seal the papers in the best interest of the child.
Now public, the court filings by Jeri Ryan revealed that she claimed that her husband had taken her to sex clubs in New Orleans, New York City, and Paris, where he had begged her to perform sex acts with him in front of other attendees of the clubs. Jeri Ryan described one as "a bizarre club with cages, whips and other apparatus hanging from the ceiling."[3] In opposing court papers, Ryan denied the allegations, calling them "ridiculous", and accusing her of trying to libel him with the accusations, which he labeled "smut," and trying to sabotage a potential political career. After the papers became public, he continued to deny the allegations and vowed to stay in the race. In defense of Ryan, some supporters pointed out that the judge in the custody case ruled in his favor, suggesting the accusations were not viewed as credible by the court. Jeri Ryan refused to comment.
Before the Republican primary election, state party chairwoman Judy Baar Topinka had asked Ryan if there was anything embarrassing in the files; he replied that there was not. After the allegations were made public, LaHood immediately called on Ryan to drop out of the race. By June 25, Dennis Hastert, another prominent Illinois Republican (and the House Speaker) had "made some calls", according to anonymous sources reported in the Daily Southtown, and the consensus was for Ryan to step aside. The Southtown newspaper also reported that Ryan was expected to step aside.
Some commentators pointed out that the information contained in the files involved private matters between a husband and wife and should not have been grounds for the destruction of Ryan's campaign. However, one of the factors — aside from the sex club allegations — was the belief that Ryan had misled the Republican leadership, thereby preventing the party from taking any measures that might have avoided the damage. As his support continued to decline, Ryan withdrew from the race on June 25, 2004. Party leaders chose Alan Keyes as Ryan's replacement in the race; Keyes lost to Obama.
