Just when it seemed that Chicago might sleepwalk through Tuesday’s election, candidates and voters got a wakeup call Monday with 11th-hour rhetoric about vote fraud, political double-crosses and campaign gangsterism.
Despite one of the quietest municipal election campaigns in the city in 16 years, there were reminders why Chicago isn’t Des Moines or Minneapolis when it comes to politics:
– Mayor Richard Daley, heavily favored to win renomination for another term, barely suppressed a yawn as he acknowledged that his race against Democratic primary challenger Joseph Gardner wasn’t one of the toughest in his career. Daley’s biggest problem was being forced to deny reports that he had dropped his neutrality in the contest for city treasurer.
– With heated aldermanic races in more than two-dozen of the 50 wards, charges of intimidation and the use of street-gang members were being leveled by several candidates. The Gardner camp, meanwhile, labeled Daley as “an oppressor.”
– Law enforcement officials-Police Supt. Matt Rodriguez, Cook County State’s Atty. Jack O’Malley and Atty. Gen. Jim Ryan-spelled out measures they will take to stem vote fraud. The Chicago Board of Election Commissioners has obtained a court order designed to head off possible absentee voting fraud in four wards.
Part of the intrigue of the 39 aldermanic contests is the fact that five of the candidates are ex-felons, running despite an untested state law that would bar them from serving on the City Council. Also, a group called 21st Century VOTE, affiliated with a street gang, is active in some wards.
Daley summed up the anxiousness felt by all the citywide contenders and the 197 aldermanic candidates.
“You just want to win,” he said. “That’s the key. You want people to come out and vote.”
Daley had curtailed his public appearances in the closing days of the campaign, confident that he will coast to victory on the big lead he held over Gardner in polls and not wanting to commit a last-minute mistake.
“My administration has been an administration of breaking down barriers, of taking race and religion and ethnic identity out, and of moving the city forward,” Daley said after stopping at a North Side senior citizens’ center. “We’ve managed well.”
Meanwhile, Gardner spent the day as he had most of his campaign-hustling. The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District commissioner crisscrossed the city, from college campuses to public housing developments, in a quest for voters that wound up at Operation PUSH headquarters for a rally.
“It’s very important that we vote,” Gardner told Truman College students on the North Side. “If (South African President) Nelson Mandela can spend 24 years in jail, then certainly we can spend 25 minutes and vote tomorrow. Is that too much to ask?”
Gardner told audiences that his priorities were increased state funding for Chicago Public Schools, additional affordable housing and jobs programs and crime fighting focused on prevention.
Gardner’s campaign manager, Paul Davis, derided as “bogus” public-opinion polls showing Daley far ahead. He said it was unrealistic to expect that Daley will run much better in the black community than the 20 percent or less that white candidates have received in recent city elections.
“These polls . . . do not reflect the sort of voting pattern that has historically been the case in Chicago politics,” Davis said.
On another matter, Daley disputed reports that he broke a promise to stay out of the primary for treasurer. “I’m not going to get into it with these two candidates,” Daley said.
– Treasurer: Incumbent Miriam Santos and Democratic primary challenger Lawrence Bloom, the 5th Ward alderman, spent the final day of the campaign alternately appealing to voters and ward committeemen, who make or break careers by deciding which candidate to feature on Election Day palm cards.
Santos, the first woman treasurer and the first Hispanic to hold citywide office, said she professionalized the office and that Bloom lacks an understanding of the job. Bloom, a former City Council Budget Committee chairman, argued that Santos has been ineffective since she first was appointed by Daley in 1989, a period that he said has been marred by constant staff turnover in the office.
Daley professed his neutrality in the race, and the contenders have lobbied hard for support from the mayor’s allies to complement their respective bases-Latinos and women for Santos, blacks and lakefront whites for Bloom.
“A lot of them are supporting Santos. A lot of them are supporting Bloom. I know people who are supporting Santos and Bloom, to be very frank,” Daley said.
Bloom and Santos are joined in the primary by Douglas E. Heitz, a follower of political extremist Lyndon LaRouche. The candidates in the GOP primary are Patricia Rogers and Melvin Delk.
– Clerk: Just as the Democratic primary for city treasurer has been a low-key campaign, the race for the clerk’s nomination been waged in the precincts, with the outcome to be determined by organizational strength.
The contest features a pair of bombastic non-conformists trying to break into citywide office: Ald. James Laski (23rd) and state Sen. Rickey Hendon. Also running are Polish-American TV personality T. Ron Jasinski-Herbert and Anthony Harper, a LaRouche supporter.
The winner will face Republican Edward Howlett and Harold Washington Party candidate Aracely Munoz in the April 4 general election.
– GOP mayoral: A mixed assortment of Republicans are vying for the mayoral nomination and the hope that lightning will strike in April, giving Chicago its first GOP mayor since William Hale “Big Bill” Thompson was elected to his third and final term in 1927.
The leading contenders for the GOP nomination are Nino Noriega, a businessman, and his erstwhile supporter, Larry Horist, a former executive director of the United Republican Fund.
The GOP refused to formally endorse either candidate in a race that is expected to attract fewer than 20,000 voters. Noriega has the backing of a multi-ethnic coalition led by URF President Joseph Morris, the conservative who ran unsuccessfully for Cook County Board president last November. Horist’s supporters include Lt. Gov. Bob Kustra and Republicans who work with Secretary of State George Ryan.
Also running in the GOP primary are: William Grutzmacher, who has made anti-Semitic and racist remarks; welfare-reform advocate Kimball Ladien, a psychiatrist; and Ray Wardingley, a part-time professional clown.
– Turnout: The Chicago Board of Election Commissioners projected a turnout of 49 percent to 52 percent by the city’s 1.4 million registered voters. Turnout for the 1991 municipal primary was 47.7 percent, the lowest in three mayoral elections since the record 77.4 percent in 1983, when Harold Washington was elected Chicago’s first black mayor.
