Editorial: Quinn, Rauner and a salute to public service

From a distance, at least, we tend to demonize or lionize our political leaders.

Partly, this is perhaps simply human nature. People in every other culture and nation seem to do the same thing.

Partly, it no doubt is brought on by the politicians themselves feeding as they do off the relentless attack ads that pervade their campaigns and on the emotional appeals they exploit to reliably move the electorate.

Whatever the reasons, our political leaders tend to become to us superficial caricatures, made to some degree out of our own whole cloth, larger-than-life figures but yet two-dimensional. We make them what we want them to be, but we don't add flesh and blood or hopes and fears.

This tends to be true whether we love them or hate them, support them or oppose them, feel led by them or let down by them.

We were reminded of this Wednesday while observing Gov. Pat Quinn concede defeat. There he was, for all of Illinois to see, wearied, disappointed, saddened, a real human being who'd given it his all and come up short.

We tend to view politicians in black and white, but so seldom as real people.

But ultimately, of course. they are, as real as any of the rest of us and as human too.

For our part, we've opposed Pat Quinn a lot over the years but never found him dislikable. In office, he often acted courageously - including the pledge to our editorial board last month that led to his undoing, his lightning-rod vow to push through a repeat of the lame-duck tax increase.

We will miss Quinn's affability, his incessant cheerfulness, his realness. When, through cute circumstance, he called a home run from the broadcast booth of a White Sox game last summer, he did it with a fan's boyish glee. It was as genuine a moment as Wednesday's concession.

Our biggest problem with Quinn was less his motives or his politics, but more that through years of misgovernment, Illinois has fallen into such a deep crisis that it cannot be raised with the status quo or one-party rule.

Sadly for Quinn, since the electorate lacks the means to replace the speaker of the House or the Senate president, changing the governor became the only option. For a system of checks and balances, after all, there must be a check. Now finally in Bruce Rauner, Illinois has one.

He comes into office with energy and optimism, but saddled also by caricature. His doubters like to view him as a cold and ruthless billionaire. During the campaign, few references to him appeared without the word "wealthy" not far behind as though it were a demonic part of his name.

As Rauner begins his transition to the governorship, let us remember that caricatures are confining, not defining.

Let us remember that he is human too.

And let us wish him wisdom and goodwill on the paramount endeavor to repair our state.