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LOS ANGELES - Dealing a blow to the U.S. Senate candidacy of Republican Jack Ryan, a California judge ruled that several sealed divorce records likely to embarrass the candidate and his ex-wife should be opened to the public. Ruling on a request brought by attorneys for the Tribune and WLS-TV, Superior Court Judge Robert Schnider acknowledged that the resulting publicity from the disclosure would be harmful to the couple's son, a key argument Ryan had raised in seeking to keep the documents from public view. But Schnider said he had weighed the public interest of disclosure against the private interests...

Four years ago Obama was in a tight race with a Republican opponent--Jack Ryan. Wikipedia records what happpened. ...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. On March 3, 2004, several of Ryan's GOP primary opponents urged release of the records.Both Ryan and his wife agreed to make their divorce records public,...

Open Letter to the Illinois Republican Party Re: The Fall of the Illinois Republican Party For the past few years I've watched the Illinois Republican Party fall into complete disarray. First, there was the defeat of Jim Ryan. A Chicago Democrat ran on the platform to clean up Springfield and the voters bought it. That should have rang with earth shattering result in the IL GOP, but it didn't. Then came along with the 2004 race with the Jack Ryan / Alan Keyes fiasco. Going into the 2006 election with a very defeatable incumbent governor, the IL GOP seems to...

Jack Ryan, the U.S. Senate candidate who dropped out of the race after his embarrassing divorce records became public, plans to launch a weekly newspaper in Homer Township, according to his former aides. Ryan could not be reached Monday for comment, but several people who once worked for him said the investment banker-turned-teacher has been interested in publishing a newspaper for some time. Homer Township is one of the state's fastest-growing areas and an affluent one, dominated by the 3½-year-old village of Homer Glen — making it ripe for a community newspaper, sources said. Ryan won the March Republican primary...

"I am a Christian.... So, I have a deep faith. I'm rooted in the Christian tradition. I believe that there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people. "That there are values that transcend race or culture, that move us forward, and there's an obligation for all of us individually as well as collectively to take responsibility to make those values lived." Thus, U.S. Senate candidate for Illinois Barack Obama in a campaign contribution by Chicago Sun-Times columnist Cathleen Falsani. Obama's...

Elections - AP Senate Keyes Will Run for Senate in Illinois 3 minutes ago By MAURA KELLY LANNAN, Associated Press Writer ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - Alan Keyes (news - web sites), the conservative Maryland political commentator whom Illinois Republicans turned to after weeks of searching for a replacement Senate candidate, accepted the challenge Sunday of running against a rising Democratic star who has grown only more formidable as the state GOP has been mired in scandal and disarray. "We do face an uphill battle, there's no doubt," Keyes told cheering supporters at a rally. "So I'm not going to stand...

Republican Party officials are planning a meet-the-candidate tour for the U.S. Senate nominee they hope to name at a meeting Tuesday to replace former candidate Jack Ryan. ..... Republican sources said a late entry into the race may be former presidential candidate Alan Keyes, a conservative who served as an ambassador to the United Nations in the Reagan administration and ran far behind George W. Bush in the 2000 Republican presidential primaries. Keyes, a Harvard-educated radio commentator from Maryland, also ran unsuccessfully for president in 1996, and for U.S. senator from Maryland in 1988 and 1992. "I know he has...

"The issues don't really matter," says one party fund-raiser. "This guy is the dream candidate." The Economist, July 15 With the June 25 announcement by conservative Republican Jack Ryan that he was dropping out of the U.S. Senate race for Illinois, and legendary Chicago Bears tight end/coach Mike Ditka's July 14 announcement that he would not serve as the sacrificial lamb of the corrupt, Illinois Republican Party leadership, the seat falls to Democrat candidate Barack Obama virtually by default. Meanwhile, in what is taking on the airs of a coronation, Obama has been chosen (while Hillary Clinton has been snubbed)...

Over the past week or two, talk in Illinois of former Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka making a run for the U.S. Senate became surprisingly serious. Before Ditka announced yesterday that he's not interested, enough members of the Illinois Republican State Central Committee, which will select a nominee to replace Jack Ryan, had endorsed Ditka that the nomination was his for the taking. This despite his lack of campaign experience and an apparent ineptness at packaging his message: in a moderate-to-liberal state, Ditka declares himself "ultra-ultra-ultra-conservative," despite being anti-gun. To understand why so many were so quick to embrace Ditka,...

Ditka among GOP names for Illinois Senate seat By MAURA KELLY LANNAN The Associated Press 7/10/2004, 8:38 p.m. CT CHICAGO (AP) — Former New Orleans Saints coach Mike Ditka is being considered as a Republican candidate to replace Jack Ryan in the race for the U.S. Senate in Illinois. Advertisement The other name making the rounds a day after state Sen. Steve Rauschenberger declined to run include Andrea Grubb Barthwell, the Bush administration's former deputy drug czar who resigned Friday to explore the possibility of a candidacy. House Speaker Dennis Hastert smiled Friday when asked what Illinois Republicans are looking...

SOUTHERN ILLINOIS -- Da Bears or Da Senate. Most conversations involving fans of the Chicago Bears eventually revert to the 1986 Super Bowl championship and their ringleader, Coach Mike Ditka. "Iron Mike," as he is known, won more than 100 games for the Bears from 1982 to 1992 after a distinguished playing career with the Monsters of the Midway. Now 64, Ditka is making news outside the gridiron. It has been speculated that he may enter the political arena. The prize -- a U.S. Senate seat now up for grabs after incumbent Republican Peter Fitzgerald announced he would not seek...

The Illinois Republican Party took another body blow Thursday, as the candidate considered the favorite by a number of GOP leaders dropped out of the running to replace U.S. Senate nominee Jack Ryan. State Sen. Steve Rauschenberger said his late entry into the race would have made it nearly impossible to raise the money required to compete effectively against Democrat Barack Obama... Aurora dairy owner Jim Oberweis argues that his second-place primary finish makes him the "logical" choice. But many Republicans remain uneasy over TV commercials Oberweis ran during the primary attacking President Bush's immigration reform plans. Oberweis insists he...

Rauschenberger takes pass on Senate raceBy Rick Pearson Tribune political reporter Published July 8, 2004, 4:00 PM CDT State Sen. Steve Rauschenberger took himself out of the running today to replace Jack Ryan as the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, sending the GOP scrambling once again for a candidate to challenge Democrat Barack Obama. In a brief statement, the Elgin Republican and 11-year state senator said he was grateful for the support he has received for his potential candidacy, but added, "Right now my full attention is needed in the Illinois Senate."

The Illinois Republican Party is under fire from grass-roots groups who say the party forced U.S. senatorial candidate Jack Ryan to withdraw from the race, and they want his name returned to the ballot.     Mr. Ryan, who won the March Republican primary, stepped aside June 25 after details of his sex life were revealed in previously sealed divorce records. He was to run against Democratic state Sen. Barack Obama.     "Jack Ryan was under pressure from the state party to resign. They pushed him out, and we want him back," said Doug Ibendahl, who heads a 20,000-member group called the Republican...

I just watched Hannity interview Jack Ryan, former Republican candidate for the Senate from Illinois. Sean made some amazing challenges at the end of the interview.

The "public's right to know" has received a thorough vetting the past couple of weeks with release of a U.S. Senate candidate's sealed divorce records, the contents of which were sufficiently embarrassing to cause him to withdraw from the race. Republican candidate Jack Ryan's divorce files, which were opened at the behest of the Chicago Tribune and a television station, revealed that Ryan had taken his wife to a "sex club" and asked her to have sex with him in front of others. Ryan and his former wife sought to keep the particulars of their divorce private; just days after...

Consider this. If only actress and "Star Trek: Voyager" alum Jeri Ryan had been into getting jiggy with her husband in sex clubs, three distinct groups of people would be very happy. First, obviously, there would be Mr. Ryan himself. Not only would he not have been forced to quit his bid for Illinois senator, he would have gotten to, well, you know with Jeri Ryan in a really funky setting - which, however tacky that might be to us, is what he wanted from the get-go. Second, the Kerry campaign would be ecstatic because he wouldn't be facing incredible...

OPINION -- With the June 25 announcement by conservative Republican Jack Ryan that he was dropping out of the U.S. Senate race for Illinois, the seat falls to Democrat candidate Barack Obama virtually by default. But who is Barack Obama? Is the charming, handsome, articulate 42-year-old state senator who dominated a field of six in the March 16 Democrat primary with 53 percent of the vote, the herald of a “new kind of politics” or merely a new voice calling for the same old, racist, urban welfare politics the Democrat Party has promoted for forty years? On June 4, New...

<p>Over 90% of the RYP members that contacted us after Jack Ryan's decision to end his campaign for the U.S. Senate, have expressed their belief that Jack should have continued with his campaign on the issues. We have heard nearly universal disappointment and outrage that a few in our local GOP were allowed to gin up media pressure for him to withdraw - even in the face of continued strong support from national Republican leaders.</p>

I'm in the midst of preparing a letter to the editor to the Chicago Tribune concerning their recent editorial from June 25 arguing why they decided to go to court to obtain the Ryan's child custody records. I recognize that not everyone here will agree with my thoughts, but I would like to seek your feedback on my letter. I appreciate your comments. Thanks! Here's a first VERY ROUGH draft: Dear Voices of the People: The Chicago Tribune claims in its editorial, “Why the Tribune went to court”, that court files are open unless a compelling interest tips the balance...

CHICAGO - Even though he is not required to under election laws Jack Ryan is promising to return up to 1.5 million in campaign funds he raised for his now defunct Senate campaign. Ryan had planned on running a tough U.S. Senate race from Illinois until a judge decided to unseal "sealed" records from the Ryan custody hearings between Ryan and actress ex-wife Jeri Ryan. The former Mrs. Ryan had made unsubstantiated allegations about Jack taking her to sex clubs on trips to New York and Paris. Politicians from Hillary Clinton to former Illinois Governor George Ryan have made practice...

PHOENIX, Ariz. (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry (news - web sites) on Tuesday rejected any suggestion that he release records of his 1988 divorce, calling it old history that had nothing to do with anyone else. "I have no intention of doing that at all," Kerry said during a campaign stop in Phoenix, Arizona, when a reporter asked if he would release the papers from his divorce from his first wife Julia Thorn. In a U.S. senate race in Illinois, Republican candidate Jack Ryan quit his campaign last week after the Chicago Tribune and other media sued to...

Today: June 30, 2004 at 7:52:05 PDT Ex-Candidate Jack Ryan to Offer Refunds ASSOCIATED PRESS CHICAGO (AP) - Former Republican Senate candidate Jack Ryan is offering refunds to donors following last week's collapse of his campaign amid embarrassing sex allegations. Ryan had raised about $1.5 million since winning the Republican nomination, said Jason Miller, who managed Ryan's campaign. He said donors to the general election fund will be informed of Ryan's decision next week. The campaign has not released figures on how much has already been spent, but Miller said Ryan will spend his own money for any bills and...

Jack Ryan watched his young career as a Senate candidate go up in smoke because the Chicago Tribune sued to bust the seal on his divorce papers from his wife, "Star Trek" actress Jeri Lynn Ryan. In the papers, Mrs. Ryan asserted that her husband pressured her to have sex with him in public in swinging sex clubs. Republicans wanted him gone. He had lied to conservative journalists and GOP supporters alike when he said there were no potential skeletons in his closet. Republicans wouldn't stand for that. Bill Clinton now claims a "badge of honor" because independent counsel Kenneth Starr...

CHICAGO (CBS 2) Jack Ryan's campaign flameout over sex club charges has left state Republicans in political paralysis. With the election just four months away, no big names are coming forward to face-off against popular Democrat nominee Barack Obama. Former four-term Illinois Governor Jim Thompson, former Lieutenant Governor Corinne Wood and current corruption-busting federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald are just some of the names being thrown around in a desperate search by Republicans for a candidate willing to run for the U.S. Senate. Investment banker Jack Ryan's resignation last Friday leaves a likely suicide mission for whomever volunteers to pick up...

The unsealing of divorce court records of a Republican U.S. Senate candidate in Illinois could impact the presidential aspirations of Sen. John Kerry, who has his own divorce records under seal in Massachusetts. The publication of accusations made by Jack Ryan’s ex, actress Jeri Ryan, led him to withdraw from the senate race last week. Both Ryans had asked that the records -- in which Mrs. Ryan claimed her husband had tried to get her to go to sex clubs and have sex with him while others watched -- be kept secret. But, at the behest of the Chicago Tribune,...

IT may not be illegal for a man to ask his wife for sex in front of strangers in a nightclub with cages and whips suspended from the ceiling, but it is inadvisable if he is considering a run for the US Senate. Jack Ryan, an improbably tall, dark and handsome candidate for a Senate seat in Illinois, twisted in the wind for days last week, unwilling to admit he had done anything wrong after the release of divorce papers in which his former wife, a steely blonde Star Trek actress, described how he had taken her to “explicit sex...

Okay, there is a grassroots campaign to draft Mike Ditka to become State GOP Chairman. How about Ditka as a replacement for Jack Ryan on the ballot instead?

WASHINGTON (AP) - Illinois Republican senatorial candidate Jack Ryan, his candidacy in turmoil over sex club allegations, decided to quit his quest for Congress on Friday. "I am today withdrawing from the race," he said in a statement prepared by his campaign. "What would take place, rather, is a brutal, scorched-earth campaign - the kind of campaign that has turned off so many voters, the kind of politics I refuse to play." Politics is a cruel mistress. If Jack Ryan were a masochist instead of an exhibitionist, he might be having the time of his life right now. The 44-year-old...

CHICAGO - This afternoon, Leader Media President Dan Proft announced that IllinoisLeader.com plans to file suit to obtain Massachusetts' Senator John Kerry's, the presumptive Democrat nominee for President, sealed divorce records from his first marriage to Julia Thorne which was later annulled. "The Chicago Tribune and a Los Angeles Family Court judge have established a new standard for the release of marital and custodial documents," said Proft referring to the recent Jack Ryan decision. "Okay, then everyone in the public arena needs to be held to that standard. John Kerry is the start but there will be others we will...

Who would you like to see replace Jack Ryan as Republican candidate against Barak Obama? I'd like to see Jerry Weller, as long as he didn't have to give up his congressional seat to run.

He's appalled that someone would actually want to have sex with his own wife.

The Chicago Tribune and others in the media establishment were eager to unseal the divorce records of and destroy the Senate candidacy of GOP nominee Jack Ryan. But for some strange reason the pro-Democrat media have shown no more interest in John Kerry's divorce records than they have in uncovering his complete military records. Fear not. The conservative Illinois Leader announced today it would sue to obtain Kerry's divorce papers. Stay tuned. P.S.: Teh-RAY-zah, if you're reading this, please don't pound your hubby on his expensively coiffed noggin.

Illinois Senate: Obama 54% Ryan 30% June 25, 2004--In the race to fill a U.S. Senate seat for Illinois, Democrat Barack Obama leads Republican Jack Ryan 54% to 30%. The survey was conducted for the Daily Southtown. Ryan has been dealing with the fallout from release of his divorce files in recent days. Many people believe he will withdraw from the race. The Daily Southtown quoted Scott Rasmussen as saying Ryan "can lose or withdraw. He's not going to the Senate." Our previous survey found a much more competitive race (Obama 48% Ryan 40%). Since that time, Ryan's ratings have...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Illinois Republican candidate Jack Ryan intends to abandon his Senate bid after four days spent trying to weather a political storm stirred by sex club allegations, GOP officials said Friday. A formal announcement was expected within hours, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Ryan conducted an overnight poll to gauge his support in the wake of the allegations made by his ex-wife in

Per Fox News

...The resulting effect has led to a political bloodthirsty moment (as Jill Stanek wrote about) for the ILGOP who hate the conservative wing of their party to begin with and thus the calls of absolute shock and horror over the "lies" and "the way they were decieved". Conservatives are also upset that Jack didn't just take the simple step of revealing to them what was in the allegations from the beginning - so that in the primary voters could make their mind up and decide if they felt the mere allegations were too much to overcome. All of this brings...

A recent news story about a mouse born to two “mommies” [1] suggested that the feminist fantasy of parthenogenesis, in which women would bear children without any “input” from men, might someday be realized. But New York Times columnist Bob Herbert [2] went the pc feminists at the ABC one better: On June 4, he suggested that Illinois politician Barack Obama was birthed by Obama’s father, without a female (what used to be called a “mother”) playing any role in the matter. O.K., Herbert didn’t actually say that, though he’s said things just as outrageous in the past. What he...

Friday, June 25, 2004 An open letter to Sen. Fitzgerald Posted: June 25, 20041:00 a.m. Eastern By Kevin McCullough © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com Dear Sen. Peter Fitzgerald: Desperate times often have called for desperate measures. There could be no greater political time of desperation than what the state of Illinois faces today. A man who is bright, articulate and seemingly well suited to run for your Senate seat has seemingly violated the trust of those in the leadership in his party and now it appears is unavoidably damaged in his quest to become the next senator from Illinois. Let me say upfront...

Ryan Considers Abandoning Senate Bid Jun 24, 6:19 PM (ET) By DAVID ESPO WASHINGTON (AP) - Illinois Republican senatorial candidate Jack Ryan, his candidacy in turmoil over sex club allegations, is considering quitting the race, a knowledgeable GOP official said Thursday. Ryan weighed his political future privately while his campaign insisted publicly that he would remain on the ticket. "Jack Ryan is in the race to stay," said a spokeswoman, Kelli Phiel. The GOP source said that Ryan was considering ending his campaign on a day that the Senate hopeful abruptly canceled a planned fund-raising visit to Washington and all...

WASHINGTON—-Beleaguered Senate Republican candidate Jack Ryan is considering quitting the race in the uproar touched off by the release of his divorce records, a Republican source told the Chicago Sun- Times on Thursday. "He’s reassessing," the source said. Ryan canceled a trip to Washington today where he had planned to appear with Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (R-Ill.) and attend a fund raiser headlined by Sen. George Allen (R-Va.), the chairman of the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee. Another fund raiser that had been set for this morning with House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) was also canceled when Hastert had a meeting...

Officials in the Jack Ryan campaign have spoken to some members of the congressional delegation, asking for advice about a possible strategy for ending his candidacy in the U.S. Senate race, sources said today. But as recently as this morning, a Ryan spokeswoman was denying rumors the candidate was reassessing whether to continue his campaign. "We are not reassessing. Jack Ryan is in the race to stay. Jack Ryan will be in the race on Nov. 2,'' Kelli Phiel told the Associated Press. The conversations between Ryan's campaign and Republicans in Washington came after the candidate dropped a scheduled trip...

Ryan Cancels Washington Fund-Raising Trip Illinois U.S. Senate Hopeful Ryan Cancels Washington Fund-Raising Trip Amid Sex Club Allegations The Associated Press CHICAGO June 24, 2004 — Senate candidate Jack Ryan canceled his Thursday fund-raising trip to Washington amid a Republican backlash over embarrassing allegations in his divorce records, but a spokeswoman denied rumors that he is considering withdrawing from the race. "We are not reassessing. Jack Ryan is in the race to stay. Jack Ryan will be in the race on November 2," spokeswoman Kelli Phiel said Thursday. She said the Republican candidate called off the trip after a fund-raiser...

Chicago - Newly unsealed divorce case records of US Senate candidate Jack Ryan allege that the Illinois Republican requested sex on several occasions from actress Jeri Ryan, who was allegedly his wife at the time. "If true, these charge bring into doubt Jack Ryan's fitness for public office," said an Illinois Democratic Party official who requested anonymity. "What kind of perverted sicko harbors sex fantasies with his own spouse?" While state GOP officials remained mum on the scandal, Illinois Republican representative Ray LaHood urged Ryan to withdraw his candidacy, saying that the controversy threatened to "tar all Republicans as twisted...

June 23, 2004 — The future of Jack Ryan's campaign for U.S. senate seems more in doubt. ABC 7 has learned about several signs that the republican's campaign events will be scaled back but publicly Ryan is still saying he's staying in the race. Two days ago the release of his divorce records rocked the Ryan campaign. The documents included allegations about visits to sex clubs. "If he asked me today, I would say, Jack, you need to assess whether you can wage a reasonable campaign and my view would be you probably can't," said Gary Skoien, Cook County GOP...

The Boston Globe Archives August 22, 1989 by John Robinson His divorce has been final for only six months, but already Sen. John Kerry has acquired a first-class rake's reputation in the rarefied world of rich, handsome, young bachelor senators. To hear the gossips tell it, the tall, dark-haired former Navy officer with the surgically improved chin has been cutting a swath through the ranks of America's most available young women, inspiring both admiration and envy among the capital's preening young singles. There was the lithesome, British-born researcher for ABC-TV, Emma Gilby, whose long affair with Kerry has left her...

Thank you, everybody, for being here today. I'm very grateful you came out today to listen to me and hear my thoughts. We just spent a weekend in this country thinking about fatherhood. I couldn't be with my son this weekend, but he sent me the most beautiful picture. It's a picture of him in a James Bond costume. He's got an oversized tuxedo on, and he's got a hat that is way too big, and kind of askew. He's got this look on his face, and I think he's trying to be cunning, but he looks a little bit...

Democrats and Liberal Media Attempt To Divide Republican Party Senatorial candidate, Jack Ryan, is under attack by democrats, and some republicans, after the release of his divorce papers on Monday. This is an attempt to divide the republican party and detract us from our message, and we cannot allow this attempt to succeed. It is important that republicans stick to the issues affecting Illinois and the rest of the country. We are facing a healthcare crisis, we are fighting a war on terror, judges are legislating from the bench, God is being driven out of our society, our Second Amendment...

Bill Clinton goes on a media blitz to promote his memoirs, and wouldn't you know it, a genuine nineties-style sex scandal erupts. Illinois Republican Senator Peter Fitzgerald is retiring, and Jack Ryan is the Republican nominee running for his seat. (Ryan is no relation to former Governor George Ryan, former gubernatorial candidate Jim Ryan, or, for that matter, to the Tom Clancy protagonist of the same name.) With a politically attractive biography -- he ended a lucrative investment-banking career to teach in a inner-city school -- Ryan had the best shot of any of the candidates he trounced in the...

CHICAGO - Top members of Senate candidate Jack Ryan's own party are questioning his honesty after the unsealing of his embarrassing divorce papers, a controversy that some analysts say could sink his campaign. Republican National Committee (news - web sites) member Mary Jo Arndt said Ryan misled her about the contents of the divorce records, which include allegations that he insisted that his then-wife, actress Jeri Lynn Ryan, go to sex clubs with him. Ryan denied the allegations. The records were released Monday after a judge ordered the documents unsealed. Ryan and his ex-wife both fought the release, saying it...