About Dan Walker (politician)
Daniel J. Walker (August 6, 1922 – April 29, 2015) was an American lawyer, businessman, and politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 36th governor of Illinois, from 1973 until 1977. Walker was raised in San Diego, California, serving in the U.S. Navy as an enlisted man and officer during World War II and the Korean War. He moved to Illinois between the wars to attend Northwestern University School of Law, entering politics in the state during the 1960s. A populist Democrat who opposed Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley's political machine, Walker ran for governor of Illinois in 1972. Notably walking 1,197 miles (1,926 km) across the state during the campaign, Walker won the Democratic primary in an upset against the machine's candidate, Lieutenant Governor Paul Simon. He went on that year to narrowly defeat the Republican incumbent, Richard B. Ogilvie, but lost his own bid for re-election in the 1976 primary against Secretary of State Michael Howlett, who lost the general election by a landslide. His post-political career was marked by high living, but marred by convictions for bank fraud and perjury at the peak of the late 1980s savings and loan crisis. After a year and a half in federal prison, Walker retired to the San Diego metro area and wrote several books before he died in 2015. Walker was perhaps best known for walking the state of Illinois in 1971 during his candidacy for governor and for being an outsider to Illinois' machine politics. He narrowly won the 1972 Democratic primary against then-Lieutenant Governor Paul Simon.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.