In the summer of 2004, Illinois Republicans faced an empty roster. Jack Ryan had just dropped out of the Senate race after Barack Obama and David Axelrod sued to unseal his divorce papers, which mentioned sex clubs. With Barack Obama already the Democratic nominee and less than four months until Election Day, the party started looking for anyone with a pulse and a recognizable name. They landed on Mike Ditka.
Ditka met with party leaders at his Chicago steakhouse. He said the idea flattered him. He told reporters outside the restaurant that five or six years earlier he would have jumped on it, and that he knew he would make a good senator because he was for the people. Then he passed. Restaurant partners needed him. ESPN needed him. Family needed him. He also wondered aloud how his famous temper would play out on the Senate floor if somebody got under his skin.
A SurveyUSA poll taken that week had Obama leading Ditka 51-44 among registered voters. Not a lock, not a blowout. Obama himself called the coach formidable and pointed to his total name recognition. Instead, the GOP eventually imported Alan Keyes from Maryland. Obama won 70 percent to 27 percent, the biggest margin in Illinois Senate history. With Obama’s Democratic National Convention keynote, the state senator became a national figure, and the momentum to the White House followed four years later.
Ditka has never pretended otherwise. In 2013, at an oil-company event in North Dakota, he looked back and said it straight: “Biggest mistake I’ve ever made. Not that I would have won, but I probably would have, and he wouldn’t be in the White House.” In 2010, House member Mark Kirk won the seat held by Obama; we could have had two terms of Mike Ditka.
Ditka made the call that felt right for him at the time, and he has owned the what-if ever since. It is fair to wonder how different the next decade looks if Obama never gets that clean launch. Without that particular foil sitting in the White House, it is hard to picture the same energy that pulled Donald Trump into the race years later. Maybe four or eight years would have been enough of crooked Hillary to get Trump involved and become the force he’s become. Either way, Da Coach stayed true to his commitments, and the rest of the country got the long season that followed.
