You may have read the news by now that former Illinois Attorney General Jim Ryan is seriously considering another run for governor. Ryan commissioned a poll that shows him leading the GOP pack and running neck-and-neck with Comptroller Dan Hynes and trailing Governor Pat Quinn by five points.
That ain't bad considering Ryan's been out of politics since he lost the 2002 gubernatorial race to Rod Blagojevich.
Ryan's last name, however, will always be a liability in the wake of George Ryan's conviction and imprisonment. Nineteen percent of those polled thought Jim Ryan was the former governor, for instance, and only 10 percent knew he was the former attorney general. Ryan's name identification in the poll is only surpassed by Quinn, although Ryan's negatives are as high as Quinn's - likely because of that toxic last name.