In the weeks before the primary election, an uneasy feeling crept over Republican powerbroker Don Totten.
Call it clairvoyance or that certain sinking feeling, but the Schaumburg Township Republican committeeman was no longer so confident about his future in a post he’d held for 32 years and that had propelled him onto the national political stage.
Late Tuesday night, Totten’s fears became reality. With just a few important precincts reporting, a gloomy-faced Totten emerged from his office and conceded defeat in the committeeman’s race to former ally Paul Froehlich.
It was the end of an era for a political giant, a former Cook County Republican chairman who helped run campaigns in local, state and national elections, including the Republican presidential campaigns of Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp.
Totten was one of Reagan’s earliest Illinois backers, signing up as Midwest campaign coordinator in the former California governor’s failed 1976 run for the White House.
Sitting in his office Wednesday, looking composed despite his defeat, Totten said his only regret was being unable to turn over the committeeman’s job to someone of his own choosing.
“It was a great run,” said Totten, 65, who works as a political consultant. “You’ve got to be nuts to do it, because there’s no salary. But it’s kind of a labor of love. The excitement in politics is that something’s always changing.”
Totten blames his loss on errors made during the campaign.
Those mistakes, he said, were the unpopular practice of charging election judges who were seeking reappointment $10 to join the local Republican Party and saying he had been endorsed by Secretary of State George Ryan and U.S. Rep. Philip Crane (R-Ill.), when neither had issued their formal backing.
“We made mistakes, and (Froehlich) took advantage of those mistakes,” said Bob Lyons, Totten’s campaign coordinator.
Totten’s backers also said a sample ballot that looked remarkably like the one issued by Totten’s organization, and that was mailed to local Republican voters the day before the election, helped spell Totten’s defeat.
The impostor sample ballot endorsed Froehlich. It was nearly identical to the one distributed a week earlier by the Republican Organization of Schaumburg Township, which endorsed Totten.
Froehlich and his supporters denied being behind the look-alike literature.
“I can tell you it wasn’t me,” said Froehlich.
Froehlich attributed his victory to Totten’s endorsement problems and the controversial $10 fee. He also said Totten’s organization, over the years, had shunned Republicans who opposed the longtime committeeman, building up resentment among some local members of the GOP.
Some of the political figures who endorsed Froehlich in the primary were the same people whom Totten had opposed in this and previous elections, including Schaumburg village officials and Al Salvi, the Republican nominee for Illinois secretary of state.
Schaumburg Mayor Al Larson supported Froehlich in Tuesday’s race. Two years ago, Larson fought a bitter re-election battle against Judy Pietrucha, whom Totten had endorsed.
“There were a lot of things that were said in that campaign, a lot of things that were done in that campaign,” said Larson. “It was just a nasty campaign. I think Paul is a man of principal and integrity, and I think he will do a fine job.”
Totten had been confident about a victory early in his campaign, but later found himself fighting for his political life against his former top precinct captain.
But once the first precincts came in, even though he trailed his challenger by a small margin, the incumbent realized that his tenure probably was over. Totten retreated to his office, away from a crowd of backers who somberly stared at the returns.
“I wish I could have been there last night to see the look on some of their faces,” Froehlich said Wednesday as he retrieved his campaign signs from supporters’ lawns.
“The Totten people were telling me from the start that I didn’t have a chance, that Don’s machine is invincible. But the voters decided it’s time for a change.”
