On the day after then-Rep. Glenn Poshard lost his gubernatorial bid to Republican George Ryan in 1998, he and his wife sat in their southern Illinois home and took stock: What would they do now?
Poshard had served in Congress for a decade by then. He was a conservative Democrat who’d come through the ranks first as a teacher and then as a state senator, representing a district that, back then, was then solidly working-class Democrat.
