The cost of Bill Brady’s plan
Cutting state government ‘a dime per dollar’ would hit Springfield hard POLITICS | Patrick Yeagle
Of the estimated 400 to 500 people who showed up to a Columbus Day rally in Charleston for state senator and Republican governor hopeful Bill Brady of Bloomington, most were Republican voters angry with the state of the state. They cheered loudly as Brady criticized the policies of current Democrat governor Pat Quinn, comparing him to ousted governor Rod Blagojevich and echoing the national tea party line of “taking our country back.”
But at least four of the attendees at the Oct. 11 rally were more than just average voters; they were Republican state legislators eager to support Brady and be seen with him in a year when they all face re-election themselves. Much in contrast to Democrat legislators, who often avoid Quinn’s rallies lest they
be tied to what may be a sinking ship, state Sen. Dale Righter of Mattoon and state representatives Raymond Poe of Springfield, Chapin Rose of Charleston and Ron Stephens of Highland had every confidence in their party’s candidate for governor.
“I can understand why the Democrat candidates are maybe a little bit gun-shy about being in public with Governor Quinn,” Righter says. “His numbers are disastrously low, particularly throughout downstate. I’m not sure what they do to get up and say, ‘This is why I’m for Pat Quinn.’ I mean, they rail against Bill Brady, but they’re really not talking about Pat Quinn, and there’s a reason for that – after 21 months, there’s no record that you can get up and talk proudly about.”
Who is Bill Brady, the candidate who sur prised many political observers in the Republican primary by defeating fellow senator Kirk Dillard by just 193 votes, and who has managed to excite and unite his party into a solid voting base that consistently puts him ahead in the polls?
William E. Brady Jr., 49, grew up in Bloomington and met his wife, Nancy, while attending college at Illinois Wesleyan University. After graduating in 1983, the couple married and had three children. Their oldest daughter, Katie, is a nurse in Chicago, their middle son, Will, is attending law school at DePaul University, and their youngest son, Duncan, is a junior in high school.
“Family is obviously the most important thing to me,” Brady says. “But business is important to me, creating jobs.”
Around the time he married his college sweetheart, Brady started a Christmas tree farm with his brothers, Ed and Bob Brady, then moved into the family construction business their father started. There the Republican candidate helped streamline operations to get through the recession of the early 1980s, according to his campaign website. The company website claims it is one of the largest homebuilding companies in Illinois, having built 1,800 homes, 2,000 apartment buildings and more than 100,000 square feet of commercial property in Illinois. Bill Brady manages the real estate portion of the business, while his brothers handle the construction aspect. The company has built six houses for St. Jude Children’s Hospital and donated more than $500,000 for cancer research, the website says.
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