The scene was familiar enough: A series of old-fashioned political rallies strung out along Illinois River ports, a prairie-grassroots appeal to the state`s heartland.
And the pre-Labor Day rhetoric was time-tested to stir interest in the final two months of campaigning before the Nov. 6 election.
”There are only 68 days left for voters to know the candidates, to know who they believe and who they trust,” the Republican candidate for governor, Secretary of State Jim Edgar, exhorted his audience Thursday.
Would it be he, Edgar wondered, or Democratic Atty. Gen. Neil Hartigan?
Wait a minute. Jim Edgar or Neil Hartigan? For governor?
That`s right. Missing from the bunting-draped paddlewheeler plying the hustings was the big showboat himself, four-term Gov. James Thompson, who will retire next January after 14 years in office.
So began the closing eight weeks of the first state campaign season since 1974 in which Thompson will not be a participant. The Republican governor ramrodded statewide campaigns for three GOP presidential candidates between his own re-election turns in the so-called ”off-year” elections.
Thompson`s absence is a major factor, but it is not the only reason November`s election, the first one of a new decade that is ushering in the next century, will be unlike any off-year election in Illinois` history.
Off-year elections typically favor the party not in power in the White House. They also favor Democrats in general, especially in Illinois, because Republicans tend to be more active and interested in presidential campaign years.
But Illinois Republicans expect, and their Democratic counterparts are prepared for, the off-year voting trends to be less prevalent in 1990.
In addition to the dominant theme of change underscoring a highly competitive statewide ballot from top-to-bottom as a result of Thompson`s retirement, other factors making this is an atypical year include:
– New census data filtering in as a reminder to partisan leaders that they are vying for control of legislative and congressional reapportionment next year.
– A premium on candidate appeal as party organizations lose their dominant electioneering rolls because of television and internal feuding. Good examples include the persistent racial strife among Cook County Democrats and personality factionalism among Du Page County Republicans. A Washington-based Republican media strategist noted that President Ronald Reagan defined the GOP during the 1980s but that so far ”no hard edges have emanated from the White House” under his highly popular successor, George Bush. ”He doesn`t draw lines in the sand,” the Republican said of Bush. And learning the lessons of Michael Dukakis` loss to Bush in 1988, Democrats such as Hartigan have postured themselves as Republican look-alikes.
– Unusually competitive races lower on the ballot in three Chicago-area congressional districts and one in Rockford, in two dozen legislative districts, in the contests for three top Cook County executive offices and Will County sheriff, and for three of the seven seats on the Illinois Supreme Court.
– The moon-shot trajectory of campaign costs-some $41 million to finance all the statewide contenders-and consequently the pressure for negative advertising as a sure-fire means of shifting opinion, a trend that was seen in the 1987 and 1989 Chicago mayoral races and in the 1988 presidential campaign. Leveling the off-year playing field is what Republicans are after.
”Illinois tends to vote Democratic” in gubernatorial election years, according to campaign consultant Jim Andrews. ”This is especially true for low-salience races, which generally arouse little interest, press coverage or controversy, and appear toward the center or bottom of the ballot.”
This propensity stems from different voter turnouts from one election to the next, Andrews tells his GOP clients. For example, the vote produced by heavily Democratic Chicago increases in off-years, whereas the proportion of votes cast in Republican suburban Cook and collar counties decreases.
For Democrats to keep this advantage, they must minimize the impact of an all-black Harold Washington Party ticket, which last week gained preliminary approval to get on the Cook County ballot.
In addition to diluting traditionally strong straight-ticket Democratic voting among minorities, the third party`s presence could exacerbate political tensions that already are being blamed for declining black voter turnout in Chicago since 1987.
The Illinois Democratic Party plans a $2.1 million coordinated media campaign effort. It was heartened by organized labor`s blanket endorsement of the ticket for the first time in eight years.
Republicans, meanwhile, will press the case in their strongholds that the Democratic ticket is dominated by Chicago lawyers and Machine regulars. The GOP invented coordinated campaigning and, naturally, has focused its voter registration and turnout efforts in suburban Chicago, especially Du Page County, and key Downstate areas.
A little-known Republican competing against an equally unknown Democrat starts out at a 4- to 10-point disadvantage, according to Andrews, who advises: ”The more the 1990 race approximates a presidential year turnout skew, the greater the chances for Republican victories on the bottom of the ticket.”
That means excitement and public attention, and thus far there has been little of either.
Thompson defied the off-year odds against Republicans in three re-elections, but that was not until he was elected the first time in 1976, a presidential year. The campaign cycle for state offices was shifted two years later, allowing him to run as a relatively new incumbent.
A look at some 1990 election campaigns, sans Thompson:
– U.S. Senate. The Republican challenger, U.S. Rep. Lynn Martin, found a chink in the armor of heavily favored, liberal Democratic incumbent Paul Simon with disclosures that he intervened on behalf of a contributor involved in a savings-and-loan matter. Martin will use skilled media man Roger Ailes as her can opener while Simon seeks refuge in his senatorial duties now that the summer recess has ended.
– Governor. Both Edgar and Hartigan claim to be agents of change, while each casts his opponent as more-of-the-same. The race tightened, as was inevitable, once Hartigan set the late summer agenda with his first advertising blitz of the campaign, anti-Edgar spots about taxes. Some Republicans fear Hartigan as the best organized, most aggressive Democratic gubernatorial candidate since Dan Walker in 1972. Edgar figures Hartigan has taken his best shot and the Republican will try to turn the campaign on character issues.
– Other state offices. Because no incumbents are running, these contests have shaped up as the most competitive in a dozen years, possibly a boon to voter interest. The top candidates have built-in constituencies. Republican Lt. Gov. George Ryan versus Democratic Treasurer Jerome Cosentino for secretary of state, for example, and Republican Du Page County State`s Atty. Jim Ryan against Democratic Comptroller Roland Burris for attorney general. Susan Suter for comptroller and Gregory Baise for treasurer are the two best financed and organized GOP candidates for those offices in recent history, going up against State Sen. Dawn Clark Netsch (D-Chicago) and Patrick Quinn, respectively.
– Congress. Three Democratic incumbents have their hands filled with Republican challengers two years before new districts are drawn and Illinois loses two seats. They are Frank Annunzio in the fight of his life against State Sen. Walter Dudycz on the Northwest Side; George Sangmeister versus Homewood Mayor Manny Hoffman in a south suburban district that the GOP has made its No. 1 target; William Lipinski and the 23d Ward organization, which has faltered in past elections, against area businessman David Shestokas in an increasingly Republican district.
– Cook County. The Republicans` best chance for James O`Grady to retain the sheriff`s office and to win back past GOP possessions, the County Board presidency and state`s attorney`s office, against heavily financed Democrats hinges on whether the Harold Washington Party remains on the ballot. If the GOP is seen as a contender in these and in the races for lesser constitutional offices, it could skew voting patterns closer to their presidential-year ideal.
