Phil Crane

Philip Miller Crane (November 3, 1930 – November 8, 2014) was an American politician.

He soon established himself as one of the House's most conservative members, leading a small but growing cluster of right-wing congressmen who had cut their teeth in the fledgling conservative intellectual movement of the early 1960s and drew their inspiration from Goldwater's presidential campaign.

He was educated at Hillsdale College, the University of Vienna, and Indiana University, where he received a PhD in history in 1961.

Crane served in the United States Army.

He also attended DePauw University and the University of Michigan.

Crane was a faculty member at Indiana University and at Bradley University in Peoria, a staff member for the Republican National Committee and a director of research for the 1964 Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater.

His brother Dan Crane served alongside him as the Congressman from another Illinois district for three terms.

Another brother, David Crane, ran for Congress from Indiana a few times simultaneously with Phil and Dan.

The brothers were dubbed "the Kennedys of the Right".

At the time of his announcement, Crane expressed doubts that Reagan would run again (after two failed attempts for the nomination in 1968 and 1976), and intimated that, should Reagan run, he would likely drop out.

However, Crane did stay in the race after Reagan's entry.

Ultimately, however, Crane was one of the early candidates to drop out of the race during the Republican primaries.

He was a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from 1969 to 2005, representing the 8th District of Illinois in the northwestern suburbs of Chicago.

Crane was first elected to the United States Congress in what was then the 13th District in a 1969 special election, succeeding Donald Rumsfeld, who was appointed to a position in the Nixon administration.

Crane was a dark horse candidate in a field of seven aspirants for the Republican nomination, and was by far the most conservative candidate in the field.

Despite the opposition of the Chicago North Shore GOP monied establishment, he prevailed, though by only 2,100 votes.

He then won the special election with 58 percent of the vote.

His district number changed as Illinois lost congressional seats—from the 13th (1969–73) to the 12th (1973–93) to the 8th (1993–2005).

His district was long considered the most Republican district in the Chicago area, if not in all of Illinois.

He was handily elected to a full term in 1970, and was reelected 16 times.

Soon after being elected to his first full term in 1970, he was tapped by several conservative activists, including Paul Weyrich, to form a group of conservative congressmen to keep watch on the Republican leadership, which at the time was seen as too moderate.

This new group was known as the Republican Study Committee, and Crane served as its first chairman.

He remained a member of the group for the remainder of his time in Congress.

In 1970, Crane visited the South Vietnamese prison at Côn Sơn Island, and stated that the "tiger cages" were "cleaner than the average Vietnamese home."

In 1974, Crane helped initiate the only public and filmed audit of the United States Bullion Depository at Fort Knox in Kentucky.

This experience was shared by 12 congressmen and 100 journalists, and hosted by Mary Brooks, then director of the United States Mint.

In 1976, he was appointed Chairman of the Illinois Citizens for Reagan, in which capacity he made numerous speaking engagements throughout the midwest on behalf of the conservative California governor's unsuccessful GOP primary bid for the Presidential nomination.

From 1977 to 1979, Crane was the chairman of the American Conservative Union (ACU), a Washington, D.C. based conservative citizens' lobby and political action group.

During his tenure the group waged a nationwide campaign against President Jimmy Carter's proposed cession of the Panama Canal and against the proposed SALT II arms limitation treaty with the USSR.

As a result of these efforts, the organization's budget, staff and presence in Washington greatly increased.

In 1978, shortly before the midterm election, Crane announced that he would be a candidate for the Republican nomination for president in 1980.

This surprised many observers, as Crane had supported Ronald Reagan for president two years earlier.

After the 1980 campaign, Crane's influence rapidly declined.

Newt Gingrich, who had been elected to Congress soon after Crane announced his candidacy for president, soon surpassed him as the leading conservative firebrand in the House.

However, David never won a seat in Congress, and Dan ended up being defeated for re-election in 1984 due, in part, to his having sexual relations with a 17-year-old girl.

He almost always won with 70 percent or more of the vote until the 1990s, when he had to fend off more moderate Republicans in the primary and better-funded Democrats in the general election.

By the time the Republicans took control of the House in 1994, Crane was widely seen as a "foot soldier" for Republican causes.

Phil began to battle alcoholism, which he publicly acknowledged after winning reelection in 2000.

At the time of his defeat in the 2004 election, Crane was the longest-serving Republican member of the House.

Crane was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Cora Ellen (née Miller) and George Washington Crane III, a physician and college professor.