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My former boss, Illinois Times president Fletcher “Bud” Farrar, writes an appreciation of the last Democratic governor before Rod Blagojevich: Dan Walker (1973-1977), the Montgomery Ward executive whose report on the 1968 Democratic Convention demonstrations described them as a “police riot” and who in 1972 shed his corporate togs, donned a red bandana, and walked the state on an anti-Daley platform to upset Paul Simon for the Democratic guernatorial nomination in 1972.
A book with one of the worst titles in history, Mostly Good and Competent Men, chronicles Illinois governors up through Blago. Farrar seems to hope that history will eventually apply at least this description to Walker’s term. (FWIW, probably the Walker crowd’s most famous alum is now lieutenant governor of Illinois.) What do you think? And if you’re old enough to remember his governorship, how did you manage to navigate the web to get here?
