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.

Former colleagues dangled the possibility of lobbying, telling Poshard five clients could make him a million dollars a year.

“I said, I can’t even imagine doing that. I just, I have no interest in that whatsoever,” he said.

So that morning, he and his wife, Jo, landed on another plan: He’d been asked repeatedly on the campaign trail about how he planned to

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