Dan Walker, American lawyer and politician, 36th Governor of Illinois (d. 2015)
Daniel J. Walker (August 6, 1922 – April 29, 2015) was an American lawyer, businessman and Democratic politician from Illinois. He was the 36th Governor of Illinois from 1973 to 1977. Raised in San Diego, he served in the 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 and entered politics in the state during the 1960s.
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. Running against the machine's candidate for the Democratic nomination for governor, Walker scored a rare upset in the March 1972 primary election. He went on that year to defeat the Republican incumbent, but lost his own bid for re-election in 1976.
His post political career was marked by high living, but marred by a guilty plea to 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.