Jack Ryan Withdraws From Race Illinois

Juan Cole 06/26/2004

Jack Ryan Withdraws from Race

Illinois Senate candidate Jack Ryan withdrew from the race on Friday. It had become increasingly clear to him that the allegations he pressured his then wife, actress Jeri Ryan, to attend sex clubs in the 1990s, would dominate the campaign if he tried to remain in it.

Former senator from Illinois, Republican Peter Fitzgerald, had encouraged Ryan to stay in the race. He said, apparently without a trace of embarrassment,

‘ “I think the public stoning of Jack Ryan is one of the most grotesque things I’ve seen in politics,” the senator said Friday. He said the party’s bigwigs pushed Ryan out: “It was like piranhas. They smelled blood in the water and they just devoured him.” ‘

Can Fitzgerald say, “Bill Clinton’s impeachment”?

About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page