His name wasn`t on the ballot, and he tried to hide come endorsement time, yet Mayor Richard Daley came out of Tuesday`s primary as a big winner. Sometimes a politician leads a charmed life.
With Tuesday`s primary over, attention will focus on the November general election and races for governor and senator. But in Chicago, gears are in motion already for what comes shortly after that, the campaign for mayor and the 50 seats in the City Council.
After Tuesday`s balloting, even his opponents agree that Daley is sitting pretty. That can change, as it did for former Mayors Michael Bilandic and Jane Byrne, who stumbled on their laurels. But there is a growing sense of inevitability about Daley and 1991.
”Right now, it would be very difficult to beat Daley, no matter how many months you have to organize,” said political strategist Jim Andrews, a key player in the 1989 mayoral bid of Ald. Timothy Evans (4th). ”If you look at what happened on Tuesday, quite clearly the electoral dynamics don`t favor it.”
The third time was not the charm for those who talk of rebuilding the coalition that elected Harold Washington. Former Judge R. Eugene Pincham carried the city vote in the four-way race for Cook County Board president, and might have won right of first refusal for the 1991 tussle.
But there were no signs that the political split following Washington`s death has healed in any way. Pincham fared no better than Evans or former Mayor Eugene Sawyer, who took the first shots at reclaiming all the elements of the movement.
Voter registration efforts failed. Pincham added to confusion in the black community by snubbing black incumbents on the County Board in the 380,000-piece mailing of his recommended candidates. Only three of the nine candidates he did support for the board were nominated.
The vote in the 19 predominantly black wards, the core of the
”movement” constituency, accounted for only 35.5 percent of the turnout in the city, about the same as when Sawyer and Evans ran. By comparison, those 19 wards accounted for at least 39.5 percent of the vote in Washington`s 1987 elections and 44 percent when Jesse Jackson ran in the 1988 Illinois presidential primary.
Consider that Pincham received a little over 191,000 votes in Chicago, half the votes former Mayor Eugene Sawyer received in the 1989 primary he lost to Daley.
Reformers might note what wards turned out the highest vote totals for Pincham: Sawyer`s 6th Ward, Ald. Jesse Evans` 21st Ward, county Commissioner John Stroger`s 8th Ward, and Wilson Frost`s 34th Ward. With the exception of Evans, each of them has been derided by some element or another of the movement as machine hacks and traitors.
The irony in this was indirectly noted by Ald. Danny Davis (29th), a one- time mayoral candidate who lost his own bid for county treasurer.
”People realize now you`ve got to go back to some kind of structured approach,” Davis said. ”In addition to talking the talk, you`ve got to walk the walk. And that means knocking on doors.”
The only member of the reform movement who scored a big victory was Ald. David Orr (49th), who carried 46 wards in the primary for county clerk against the candidate endosed by the Democratic leadership and a third candidate who had reform credentials. Orr might not be a favorite of the organization bosses, but he beat most of them.
Orr, if elected in November, would take the clerk`s office within days of the start of filing for the mayoral campaign. He professes that he wants no part of the mayoral campaign this time around.
On Tuesday night, about the only politician setting sites on Daley was Rep. Gus Savage, who vowed that the ”people`s movement” would ”beat Richard Daley and the white racist press.” Apparently, Savage was emboldened by the mandate contained in the 51 percent of the vote he received in his primary victory against Mel Reynolds and a follower of Lyndon LaRouche.
Others think somewhat differently.
”I didn`t see any indication that would warrant any serious move at this point in time from my community, because the turnout was so low,” Sawyer said. ”I`m not optimistic that it`s going to change at this point.”
What could change is many of the seats in the City Council, and campaigns all across the city are already getting started.
Sawyer said he will call his precinct captains together in the next two weeks to pick a candidate to run against Ald. John Steele (6th), who bested Sawyer`s candidate Ron Robinson in a 1989 special election.
Political groups in Orr`s ward have begun discussions on candidates to run for his post if he is elected clerk.
Ald. Edwin Eisendrath (43rd) has become a target, since he lost his own ward and home precinct in his primary challenge to Rep. Sidney Yates. But Eisendrath took some consolation in how handily Yates buried him last Tuesday. ”I learned a lot about the power of incumbency, and I have that as an alderman,” he said.
Many believe that the aldermanic races could be a free-for-all. Those politicians who relied on Washington`s support to save them in 1987 will have no one to bestow that kind of blessing this time around.
And last week, Daley said that he doesn`t intend to make any endorsements for aldermen, even though several council members who face serious threats would benefit greatly from his blessing. Daley allies might still provide workers and cash to aldermen on the endangered species list, but nothing would help so much as an official seal of approval from the popular mayor.
Daley even suggested that he might not bother to seek the endorsement of the Democratic organization for his re-election bid. As he points out, he didn`t have it in 1980 when he was elected state`s attorney, or when he was elected mayor last year.
He might not need it. But the Democratic mayoral primary is 11 months away, and the press has now begun to nip at Daley`s heels, raising questions about lobbying by his political allies, about the fairness of the racial makeup of the people he has hired, and the propriety of his plan to move thousands of people out of their homes to make way for a Southeast Side airport.
Still, those who might run against him don`t appear to be warming to the challenge.
Evans has been mum, but allies believe he will eschew another mayoral bid and seek re-election to the council.
Pincham says that he is concentrating on winning election as a Cook County Board commissioner in November.
”You`re going up against a guy with an incredible popularity rating, seemingly infinite resources, and now all the advantages of incumbency,” said Jim Andrews. ”Nothing is impossible in politics, but the 1991 race is going to be difficult.”
