April 20, 2005
FRANKS WEIGHS '06 PRIMARY CHALLENGE TO BLAGOJEVICH
ANALYSIS & OPINION BY RUSS STEWART
During so-called “down time” in Springfield, when bored and restless state legislators have time to kill between (or during) committee meetings and floor votes, a favorite parlor game of many is mocking Governor Rod Blagojevich, who is roundly reviled.
For the more perversely imaginative, acronyms seem to be the order of the day – namely: concocting a series of adjectives negatively describing the governor’s character and temperament. For example, Governor J-I-V-E seems quite popular; it’s an acronym for Juvenile, Inconsiderate, Vindictive and Egotistical. Another is Governor O-A-S-I-S; it’s an acronym for Obstinate, Arrogant, Superficial, Insincere, and Self-centered. Yet another is Governor E-L-V-I-S: Erratic, Lazy, Vindictive, Inconsiderate and Spoiled.
The grand prize goes to whoever can figure out eleven relevant adjectives for the acronym B-L-A-G-O-J-E-V-I-C-H. That’s currently a work in progress.
What’s also a work in progress is the developing gubernatorial candidacy of Jack Franks, a four-term Democratic state representative from north suburban Woodstock in McHenry County.
Franks, age 41, is chairman of the House Government Administration Committee, and has recently been generating headlines for his committee’s investigation of ineptitude in the state Fire Marshall’s office, as well as the appropriation of $2.6 million for the governor’s failed attempt to import flu vaccines from Europe, and of personnel irregularities within the state department of Central Management Services. “We need an audit,” said Franks. None of the headlines have been favorable to the governor, and, in a fit of vindictiveness, deputy governor Brad Tusk recently authorized an e-mail to state department heads and agency chiefs requiring that all future requests for state services by Franks should be immediately re-routed to him – presumably so that he could insure that they would not be fulfilled.
According to Springfield sources, Franks is likely to run for governor in 2006, challenging Blagojevich in the Democratic primary next March. Among his fellow legislators, Franks says he has received much encouragement. “I won’t make any decision until after adjournment” of the legislature, said Franks, which means sometime in June.
While the fact that the governor will raise and spend upwards of $25 million to get re-elected might be daunting to potential foes, a primary race is nevertheless a win-win proposition for Franks. First, such a contest as a breakout opportunity, with the attendant publicity making Franks a statewide political figure. Second, the anti-Blagojevich vote in the primary is at least 35 percent, and perhaps as high as 45 percent; if Franks can make it close, he’ll make his reputation for a future run. Third, Franks can raise at least $4 million.
Fourth, everybody within the party who is irate at Blagojevich will vote for Franks, so as to send the governor a message. And fifth, the governor is on his own, having built a money-raising machine, but not a political machine. In 2002, Blagojevich relied on his now-estranged father-in-law, Chicago Alderman Dick Mell (33rd), to build alliances with Chicago, Cook County, and Downstate politicians. Those alliances were predicated on the promise that state jobs would be forthcoming to “deserving” Democrats. That hasn’t happened. And many Democrats grouse that the governor hasn’t even tried to make it happen. Hence, in the 2006 primary, many Democratic organizations will exert absolutely no effort on Blagojevich’s behalf, and many might even quietly support Franks. Without precinct workers, Blagojevich will have to spend upwards of $8 million on TV and media ads.
In 2002, Blagojevich became the first Democrat to win the Illinois governorship in 30 years; a Republican had won seven straight elections. The last Democrat was Dan Walker, who was elected in 1972 by just 77,494 votes over incumbent Republican Dick Ogilvie, and who governed as a “reformer,” intentionally alienating state legislators and the Chicago Democratic political establishment so as to burnish his “independent” credentials; Walker also had delusions that he could use his “outsider” image as a springboard to the White House, in either 1976 or 1980.
Is this déjà vu all over? Blagojevich, too, professes to be a reformer, exults in alienating the establishment, and lusts for the White House.
But, luckily for Blagojevich, the upcoming 2006 Democratic primary will not be 1976 all over. In that race, then-Mayor Richard J. Daley literally ordered then-Secretary of State Mike Howlett to challenge Walker in the primary, and Daley put his Machine where his mouth was. In 2006, now-Mayor Richard M. Daley will do little to help – or hurt – the governor, and Franks is not nearly as formidable as Howlett, a popular politician who had won statewide elections in 1960, 1964, 1968, and 1972.
In 1972, Walker upset the favored Paul Simon in the primary, winning by 40,293 votes, and holding Simon’s Chicago margin to just 85,311 votes. With other contests on his plate, such as a tempestuous race for county state’s attorney, Daley didn’t focus much effort on nominating Simon.
In 1976, however, beating Walker was Daley’s exclusive focus, and Howlett trounced Walker in Chicago by 202,293 votes, more than enough to give him a statewide margin of 115,341 votes. This party-splitting primary opened the door to a Republican resurgence, and Jim Thompson, then the corruption-busting U.S. Attorney, crushed Howlett in the election by a margin of 1,390,137 votes.
It should be remembered that Blagojevich’s electoral track record is less than intimidating. In the 2002 primary, Blagojevich eked out a win by just 25,469 votes, getting just 36.5 percent out of 1,252, 516 votes cast. Despite Mell’s Herculean efforts, Blagojevich finished third in Chicago, getting 137,120 votes, to 140,627 for Paul Vallas, and 202,287 for Roland Burris, who is black, and who ran up huge margins in black-majority wards. Blagojevich finished a distant second to Vallas in McHenry, DuPage, Will, Lake and Kane counties, and in the Cook County suburbs (where he ran about 50,000 votes behind Vallas). Only because of significant Downstate support did “The Kid” (as he is called by Chicago politicians) pull it off. Blagojevich got 135,105 votes (57.3 percent) among Illinois’ 96 Downstate counties, to Vallas’s 53,385 and Burris’s 47,215. That 81,747-vote bulge, due to strong support from Downstate county chairmen, and from U.S. Representative Jerry Costello (D-12), was enough to offset Vallas’s margin in the collar counties and suburbs.
For 2006, the bad news for the governor is that the Downstate Democratic establishment won’t be there for him; many chairmen and legislators will take great joy in minimizing the governor’s vote. But the good news is that there won’t be a black candidate for governor – and it’s hard to visualize an outpouring of black support for the moderate, suburbanite Franks, whose views on guns, gays and abortion are definitely out of the liberal Democratic mainstream. For example, Franks opposed the Human Rights Acts, which bans discrimination in employment against gays; he opposes gun control, opposed Home Rule gun restriction laws, proudly proclaims himself to be a hunter, but supported mandatory trigger-locks, a ban on gun-show sales, and a ban on certain types of bullets; and he supports abortion rights, but with some restrictions, such as parental notification. Franks also opposed dockside gambling.
Franks’ philosophy is somewhat reminiscent of that espoused by Glenn Poshard, the socially conservative Downstate congressman who scored a huge upset in the 1998 Democratic primary for governor. Poshard got just 37.6 percent of 950,307 votes cast, but amassed nearly 71 percent of the Downstate vote; facing three major opponents, including Burris, Poshard got 29 percent of the collar county vote, 26 percent of the suburban Cook County vote, and 19 percent of the Chicago vote. But, with the liberal primary vote split three ways, Poshard topped second-placer Burris by 66,949 votes.
So how can Franks win?
He won’t, like Poshard in 1998 (and like Blagojevich in 2002), have multiple opponents to split his opposition. It will be a one-on-one with the governor. But Franks’ backers believe that his social conservatism, bolstered by support from fellow state legislators, and coupled with growing irritation with the governor among Downstate party leaders, will give him a 2-1 Downstate margin. They also believe that, simply by being the anti-Blagojevich, Franks can garner at least half the vote in the Cook County suburbs, and 60 percent in the collar counties. In a projected 2006 statewide turnout of 950,000, the aforesaid – and quite optimistic -- projections would put Franks up by about 125,000 votes.
That means Chicago would be decisive. In 1998, Burris got 185,421 votes, and in 2002 he got 202,287. Blagojevich will advertise heavily on black radio, attacking Franks as a pseudo-Republican, and will surely pull 75 percent of the black vote. Total citywide turnout was about 410,000 in 1998, and 480,000 in 2002. Presuming a 2006 Chicago turnout of roughly 440,000, the governor needs to keep Franks’ vote below 160,000, or under 35 percent; that would give him a city bulge of more than 125,000 votes, and a victory.
Few, however, give Franks any realistic hope of victory. If he attacks Blagojevich for fee and tax hikes, and for state job losses, he risks sounding like a Republican. If he stresses his conservative social stances, he risks alienating blacks and liberals in Chicago.
Franks’ obvious strategy is to run as the non-J-I-V-E, non-E-L-V-I-S, non-O-A-S-I-S, and non-B-L-A-G-O-J-E-V-I-C-H candidate for governor. And, if he manages to get more than 40 percent of the vote, he will likely insure that Blagojevich is the non-GOVERNOR after 2006.