Thomas Hardy was a writer and editor for the Tribune, including 10 years as the paper’s top political reporter and a Sunday columnist, before leaving journalism to work as a press secretary for then-Gov. Jim Edgar and then spending 18 years overseeing public affairs for the University of Illinois System.
“He was the epitome of what you would hope a political writer would be,” said Edgar, who hired Hardy from the Tribune in 1997. “He wasn’t cynical but he was not fooled by anyone.”
Hardy, 72, died after a brief illness on March 27 at Hinsdale Hospital, said his fiancee, Suzanne Schoij. He was a resident of Hinsdale.
Hardy grew up in the South Side Beverly neighborhood, where his father was a banker who at one time worked for Beverly Bank & Trust. Hardy graduated from Brother Rice High School and received a bachelor’s degree in 1974 from Ripon University, where he played soccer.
Among his classmates at Ripon was future Chicago Sun-Times Editor-in-Chief Don Hayner, who early in his career was a reporter and columnist for the Suburban Trib and who credited Hardy with helping him get his start in journalism.
“Tom opened the door for my career, and I’m very thankful for it,” Hayner said. “He was always very helpful to me, and he was a smart guy and a very good writer, too. I looked up to him.”
After picking up a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Hardy was hired by the Tribune in 1977 as a copy clerk. He worked as a metro reporter from 1982 until 1983 and then moved to behind-the-scenes editing work in the mid-1980s.
In 1987, Hardy was tapped to be the Tribune’s lead political reporter as well as a columnist. He built a reputation as a fair-minded writer who understood and could clearly explain the nuances of local, state and national politics. He covered three presidential campaigns and made frequent appearances on public affairs shows on WGN-Ch. 9 and WTTW-Ch. 11.
While with the Tribune, Hardy covered three Chicago mayors, two governors and three U.S. presidents. In a 1996 column, he bemoaned campaign behavior by two local politicians — one a Democrat, one a Republican — who made statements contradicting prior positions while using that revisionism to attack their rivals.
“Why do candidates … behave this way, perpetuating the public’s distrust and disdain for politicians?” Hardy wrote. “Because running for office is a high-stakes, expensive proposition, and candidates with political vulnerabilities often bet that the electorate has a short memory or will fail to hold them accountable.”
Hardy wrote about former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun and her complicated relationship with then-Mayor Richard M. Daley. He was unsparing in his criticism of Moseley Braun during her 1992 U.S. Senate campaign, when she went after journalists’ who were questioning her activities as Cook County recorder of deeds and as a member of the General Assembly, likening it to being “raped by you guys.”
“As the candidate credited with launching the ‘Year of the Woman,’ a season of heightened political awareness about issues important to women and families, Braun’s haughty invocation of the rape analogy showed an insensitivity to victims of what is one of the most heinous crimes imaginable,” Hardy wrote in October 1992.
In January 1997, Hardy left the Tribune to join Edgar’s administration as press secretary, replacing Mike Lawrence.
“It was just a good time to do something like this,” Hardy told the Tribune in an article about his career move. “I still have, I hope, some relative youth and vitality to take on a different kind of opportunity to see government and politics from the other side of the coin than I’ve been looking at.”
Edgar said “I almost didn’t want to hire him because I’d miss him as a reporter.”
Gary Mack, who also was a press secretary to Edgar, remembered that “for years, I can remember in staff meetings, people talking about Tom’s column and we would look forward to his column on Sundays and what he was going to write.”
“The truth of the matter is, he treated Jim Edgar pretty well. He liked Edgar and thought he was a good governor and wanted to be part of the administration,” Mack said. “He had this wry chuckle about him that was kind of contagious, and he worked hard at his job. He will be remembered as one of the good ones, who had good advice.”
After Edgar decided not to seek reelection in 1998, Hardy took a job as a managing director of public affairs for Burson-Marsteller public relations. In 2002, he was named executive director of the office of university relations for the University of Illinois System.
“When he was interviewing for the U. of I. job, I told him if I can help any, let me know,” Edgar said. “I told the university’s president, ‘You’re not going to find a better person in the media space than Hardy.”
Hardy functioned as the chief spokesperson for the university’s president and also provided public affairs and marketing assistance to university-wide offices and coordinated activities and responses with public affairs offices on the U. of I.’s three campuses.
“Tom was one of the very first people I met when I was named president in 2015 and, for the five and a half years that followed, he was one of my most trusted advisors and friends,” U. of I. President Tim Killeen told the Tribune in a statement. “He had a deep well of knowledge about the University of Illinois System and the state of Illinois, and a degree of wisdom and judgment that made all of us who worked with him better at our jobs.”
Hardy retired from the U. of I. in 2020.
Outside of work, Hardy enjoyed athletic pursuits including soccer, racquetball, golf and snow skiing.
“My fondest memories of the guy are going to be on the golf course, because we golfed in a lot of political golf outings both before he took the job with Jim Edgar and after as well,” Mack said. “We continued our golfing relationships.”
A marriage ended in divorce. In addition to his fiancee, Hardy is survived by two sons, Kevin and Brian; two sisters, Christine Ann Hardy and Cathlyn Kroml; two brothers, Steven and Brian; and two granddaughters.
A visitation will take place from 3 to 9 p.m. Tuesday, April 1, at Hallowell & James Funeral Home, 1025 W. 55th St., Countryside. A funeral service will take place at 10 a.m. Wednesday, April 2, at Hallowell & James.
Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.
