Driven by ambition but riven by factionalism, Cook County politicians will use next month`s primary race for minor-league county offices as a workout to see who gets to move up some day to the political big leagues.
Boring ministerial posts like Circuit Court clerk and recorder of deeds, long a dumping-ground for party has-beens and never-weres, are being viewed this year as a proving ground for those who dream of being addressed as
”Mayor” or ”(County Board) President.”
Ironically, the one powerful, high-visibility office on the March 15 county primary ballot-state`s attorney-is uncontested. Democratic incumbent Richard M. Daley and Republican Terrance W. Gainer, deputy director of the Illinois State Police, have a free ride to the Nov. 7 general election.
But there`s a scramble for the lower offices, and the campaigns are not revolving around the question of who can do the best job of cataloging lawsuits or recording deeds.
The primary, however, may help answer some political questions, such as:
– Will the late Mayor Harold Washington`s supporters vote for the racially balanced Democratic ticket that he cobbled together just weeks before his death, or did his political magic die with him Nov. 25?
– Can former Mayor Jane Byrne win her first election in almost nine years?
– Will suburban Republicans accept a party slate filled with Democratic converts from Chicago?
Among politicians, the primary takes on particular importance because it`s the first election since Washington died and the first since Edward Vrdolyak, former chairman of the county Democratic Party, switched to the GOP in hopes of leading a countywide realignment.
This has left members of both parties groping for leadership. On the Democratic side, County Chairman George Dunne has not asserted himself and Mayor Eugene Sawyer has had enough trouble establishing his own legitimacy without telling other Democrats what to do. Republican County Chairman Donald Totten has had his hands full trying to satisfy suburban traditionalists, Vrdolyak`s Chicago converts and followers of the rising Republican star, Sheriff James O`Grady.
The result has been a political free-for-all in the March primary.
The most interesting race is for clerk of the Circuit Court, a post that has been, almost literally, a political graveyard. The incumbent clerk, Morgan Finley, is under federal indictment. A predecessor, Joseph J. McDonough, died in office. Another predecessor, Matthew Danaher, died in office while under federal indictment.
But this is the office Byrne has chosen for her political comeback after being defeated twice by Washington for mayor, a job she held from 1979 to 1983. Her chief opponent, endorsed by Washington and party slatemakers, is Aurelia Pucinski, a Metropolitan Sanitary District commissioner.
Adding a bizarre note to the race is the candidacy of Lyndon LaRouche disciple Janice Hart, who defeated Pucinski two years ago in the Democratic primary for Illinois secretary of state, partly because some black voters associated Pucinski with her father, Ald. Roman Pucinski (41st), a political foe of the late mayor.
Pucinski isn`t expected to lose to Hart again, but she still has a problem with black voters, no matter how often they`re told she was ”Harold`s choice.” Nobody knows what black voters will do, but the lone black in the clerk`s race, Sanitary District Commissioner Thomas Fuller of Evanston, hopes they`ll vote for him.
The winner of the Democratic primary will run in November against Vrdolyak, who, like Byrne, is believed to be considering a race for mayor or Cook County Board president somewhere down the road. The former 10th Ward alderman has no opposition in his own primary, but his political acumen will be tested, indirectly, in the GOP primary for recorder of deeds.
Vrdolyak`s handpicked candidate for recorder is Chicago Ald. Bernard Stone (50th), a lifelong Democrat who converted to the Republican Party only hours before winning slating from the party county convention.
Will suburbanites, who normally cast about three-fourths of the ballots in a county Republican primary, vote for a Democratic crossover who talks Chicagoese? Maureen Murphy hopes they won`t.
Murphy, who is Worth Township clerk and lives in Evergreen Park, jumped into the recorder race out of resentment at a party slate composed entirely of men, most of whom live in Chicago and used to be Democrats. Totten and other party bigwigs, concerned that Murphy`s gender and nationality could translate into votes, have pressured her to drop out of the race, so far to no avail.
The winner of the Republican primary for recorder will undoubtedly face State Rep. Carol Moseley Braun (D., Chicago) in November. Braun, who has token primary opposition from LaRouche candidate Sheila Jones, is giving up an influential job as floor leader of the Chicago delegation in the Illinois House in hopes of winning the right to record land titles and surveys. Braun neither concedes nor denies having higher ambitions, but many believe she is using the recorder race to gain citywide exposure for a future bid for mayor. Perhaps the most clear-cut battle between an organization Democrat and an independent is in the Democratic primary for the late Harry Semrow`s seat on the County Board of (tax) Appeals, an important but obscure two-member panel that decides whether real estate assessments are too high.
The organization candidate, State Rep. Joseph Berrios, is Democratic committeeman of the 31st Ward, a post previously held by former Sen. Edward Nedza and former Ald. Thomas Keane, both of whom went to prison. Berrios is being opposed by Jeffrey Paul Smith, an assistant city corporation counsel and friend of Patrick Quinn, a maverick populist who left the Board of Appeals to run unsuccessfully for state treasurer in 1986.
The winner of the Berrios-Smith race will face Republican David R. Wiltse, a Wheeling attorney, in November.
The most wide-open and confusing contest is for three seats on the nine-member board of the Metropolitan Sanitary District, which oversees the county`s sewer system. Ten candidates are running for the Democratic nominations, four for the Republican.
The Democratic party-endorsed slate comprises Joseph Gardner, a politically ambitious operative for the late mayor; Harry ”Bus” Yourell of Oak Lawn, who was forced to step aside as county recorder to make room on the ticket for Braun; and Leyden Township Democratic Committeeman James Kirie of Elmwood Park, who has been on the Sanitary District board since 1970.
To make room for them, slatemakers dumped 12-year veteran commissioner Nellie L. Jones of Chicago, who was believed to be more loyal to the regular Democratic organization than to Mayor Washington`s apparatus. Jones is running without official party backing and is expected to receive the support of several black ward committeemen. Another incumbent, Richard Troy of Chicago, announced his retirement shortly before slatemaking.
The other Democratic candidates, none of whom appears to have powerful political backing, are George W. Migala, a Northwest Side radio broadcaster;
George W. Sutton, a 44th Ward precinct captain; Terrence J. O`Brien, a salesman for a hazardous-waste disposal company; Frank Edward Gardner, a Sanitary District attorney; Michael W. Stuttley of Homewood, a real estate lawyer; and Ertharin Cousin, a lawyer and affirmative-action consultant.
The Sanitary District race is slightly less confused on the Republican side. The party-endorsed candidates are Raymond L. Kay, mayor of Hickory Hills; Thomas J. Walsh, a La Grange Park businessman; and Thomas J. Corcoran, a former Democrat who used to be a Chicago Park District official. The fourth candidate is John ”Buddy” Ruel, another former Democrat who is a top official of the Ironworkers Union and a close pal of Vrdolyak.
History is not on the side of those who hope to use any of these offices as a stepping stone to something bigger. The last person to do so was Republican Edmund J. Kucharski, who ”rose” from a term as recorder of deeds in the late `50s to a term as county treasurer in 1966.
