(CAPITOL CITY NOW) – The legacy of Jim Edgar‘s public service to Illinois may well be the Edgar Fellows program through the University of Illinois‘ Institute of Government and Public Affairs.

That’s how countless Fellows sized it up in remembering Edgar in the hours after his passing Sunday, and two high-profile Edgar staff members from Way Back When agree: former press secretary Mike Lawrence and former chief of staff Kirk Dillard, a longtime state senator who now is chairman of the Regional Transportation Authority.

Dillard, in fact, makes a truly staggering comparison: “Very much like the Apostles in the Bible, (the Edgar Fellows) need to go out and espouse Jim Edgar’s philosophy, which was compassion, cooperation, and problem solving, regardless of political differences.”

It’s obvious even to these Edgar loyalists that he is unlikely to get elected today.

“I think he would have a problem getting through a Republican primary. He was a social moderate. He wanted to make government work for the people who relied on it for services and also for fiscal stability,” said Lawrence, who was spokesman during Edgar’s time both as governor and as secretary of state. Lawrence is now retired from the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University.