February 15, 2006
MADIGAN FLEXES MUSCLE TO NOMINATE MANGIERI

ANALYSIS & OPINION BY RUSS STEWART

The opening round of Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan's 2010 gubernatorial campaign is under way. Her father and chief long-term political strategist, Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan, who is the state Democratic chairman, is putting the squeeze on Chicago and suburban Cook County Democratic committeemen to deliver a sizable vote for Paul Mangieri in the March 21 primary.

The reason: Mangieri, age 46, is the Knox County state's attorney and the obscure slated candidate for state treasurer. He was chosen as the candidate last summer by Madigan for his Downstate residency, not for his qualifications, campaign skills or money-raising ability. All five of the Democrats holding state constitutional office are from Cook County, and four are from Chicago.

Nineteen of the 65 Democrats in the Illinois House are from Downstate. According to party insiders, they provide critical votes in the House Democratic Caucus to support the speaker, while black and white liberal representatives often dissent. And it was the Downstate vote that enabled Rod Blagojevich to win the 2002 primary for governor.

The Downstaters -- legislators and county chairmen -- demanded a Downstater in the 2006 ticket, and Madigan gave the "throwaway" treasurer's nod to Mangieri, who blew a 2002 election for 37th District state senator by 5,164 votes, getting 46.5 percent of the vote despite spending $888,896, of which $593,309 came from the state party and $265,578 came from various political action committees. In mid-2005 incumbent Republican Judy Baar Topinka was seeking re-election and was deemed unbeatable. Only Mangieri sought to challenge her.

But then Topinka opted to run for governor, and a horde of Democrats eyed the job. Madigan dissuaded all but one, Alexi Giannoulias, a Chicagoan of Greek heritage who is the wealthy 29-year-old son of the owner of Broadway Bank. At his announcement, Giannoulias promised to spend $1 million of his family's fortune on the campaign and brandished the endorsements of Chicago's two most prominent black politicians: U.S. Senator Barack Obama and U.S. Representative Jesse Jackson Jr.

In a typical Democratic primary, 70 percent of the statewide vote comes from Cook County (of which two-thirds is from Chicago and the rest from the suburbs), 12 percent from the Collar Counties and 18 percent from Downstate. To win, Mangieri must get 75 percent of the Downstate vote, half of the Collar County vote and at least 46 percent of the Cook County vote.

My early prediction: That's not going to happen. Pro-Daley committeemen, both white and black, are pushing John Stroger for Cook County Board president and Tom Dart for sheriff, as well as local legislative candidates. They may have Blagojevich and Mangieri on their sample ballot, but they won't make a special effort for either. Giannoulias will saturate television with Obama's endorsement, which will carry great weight among white liberals and suburbanites, and Jackson will be featured on black radio stations.

Madigan is doing his utmost to help Mangieri, and Downstaters know and appreciate it. Nevertheless, Giannoulias will win with more than 55 percent of the vote. However, in 2010, when Lisa Madigan runs for governor, the Downstate political establishment will coalesce behind her -- whether it's against Blagojevich in a primary, against Topinka in the election, or for an open seat.

Here's a look at other area Democratic primaries:

3rd Illinois House District: Chicagoans have their own version of "KidCare." 33rd Ward Alderman Dick Mell's son-in-law is governor. Former assessor and 19th Ward Committeeman Tom Hynes' son Dan is comptroller. Madigan's daughter is attorney general. 23rd Ward Committeeman Bill Lipinski's son Dan is his successor in Congress.

The elder Lipinski was first elected to Congress in 1982, and he has been a committeeman since 1975. He resigned his congressional nomination in August of 2004, and the district's Democratic committeemen -- Lipinski, Madigan, Hynes, John Daley and a few suburbanites -- met and picked Dan Lipinski, a 38-year-old college professor at the University of Tennessee who had not lived in Illinois for 15 years, as his replacement. Lipinski beat the unknown Republican candidate with 73 percent of the vote.

As committeemen, Madigan and Lipinski have long had a symbiotic relationship. In the 2002 primary, Lipinski produced an 8,998-5,488 margin for Lisa Madigan over John Schmidt. That wasn't as good as Madigan's 12,043-3,479 in the 13th Ward or Daley's 8,312-2,909 in the 11th Ward, but it was much better than Hynes' 9,399-9,177 in the 19th Ward. This year Madigan is pushing Lipinski in his ward, and Lipinski is reciprocating by pushing Mangieri.

The 3rd District is 75 percent suburban, taking in a swath of western and southwestern suburbs from Berwyn to Bridgeview, and most of Lyons, Stickney and Worth townships. Lipinski drew two primary foes: John Sullivan, an assistant Cook County state's attorney from Oak Lawn, and John Kelly, a financial planner from the 19th Ward. But the fact that Alderman James Balcer (11th) and state Representative Kevin Joyce (D-35), from the 19th Ward, didn't run, says volumes. The fix is in for Lipinski.

My prediction: Sullivan and Kelly will split the anti-Lipinski vote, and the freshman incumbent will win with more than 50 percent of the vote. But here's the twist: Bill Lipinski and Topinka, from nearby Berwyn, have long had a nonaggression pact. In the 2002 election, the 23rd Ward went 10,786-7,147 for Madigan over Joe Birkett but just 8,943-7,936 for Dart over Topinka. In the 13th Ward, those numbers were 12,370-4,054 and 11,419-4,749, respectively.

It is in the Madigans' political interest to have a Republican elected governor in 2006. That gets Blagojevich out of the way. If he hangs on as governor until 2010, he might be so unpopular that a Republican would win. If Topinka is governor, Mike Madigan could, with his Democratic majority, stymie her and make her appear ineffectual -- laying the base for Lisa Madigan to beat her in 2010.

If it's Blagojevich versus Topinka, watch the Southwest Side. If Topinka runs well, then the knife in Blagojevich's back will bear the fingerprints of the "Daddy Brigade" -- Lipinski, Hynes and Madigan.

33rd Illinois Senate District (Rosemont, Park Ridge, Des Plaines, Mount Prospect, Elk Grove and parts of Wheeling, Palatine, Rolling Meadows): The Illinois Senate, with a 32-27 Democratic majority, may be more Democratic after 2006. Of the 59 senators, 39 are up for election in 2006, and five Republican-held suburban seats are in jeopardy. No Democrat is vulnerable.

Republican Dave Sullivan, who was appointed to succeed the late Marty Butler in 1998, won re-election with 60.5 percent of the vote in 2000, and he was unopposed in 2002. Sullivan resigned last September and was replaced by Cheryl Axley, the Elk Grove Township Republican committeeman. The district is historically Republican, having gone 60-40 percent for Jim Ryan over Blagojevich in 2002, but George Bush barely carried it in 2000 and 2004.

Two Democrats, Dan Kotowski and attorney Jim Morici, are seeking their party's nomination. Kotowski is a former press aide to Cook County State's Attorney Dick Devine and is the former executive director of the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence. He has been endorsed by every Democratic township committeeman in the district. Morici, a former assistant state's attorney, has raised more money: $213,000, as compared to Kotowski's $96,000, as of the Jan. 1 filing.

The outlook: This will be a $1 million district in 2006. Axley has negligible name recognition and a minimal political base. She is not an elected mayor or township official. That means that the Republican Senate Committee will have to spend at least $500,000 to introduce her to voters, create a record of accomplishment, and go negative on the Democrats' candidate. Expect Kotowski to narrowly beat Morici in the primary, and expect Springfield Democrats to pour in $500,000 to elect him. Axley is very vulnerable.

6th U.S. House District: 2006 may be a year in which political "outsiders" rate an edge over entrenched incumbents, but in the DuPage County district being vacated by 32-year Republican U.S. Representative Henry Hyde, geographical outsiders do not have any edge.

Rahm Emanuel, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the congressman from the adjacent 5th U.S. House District, recruited Iraq War veteran Tammy Duckworth to run. She lost both legs in a helicopter explosion and said the war was "a mistake," but she opposes an "artificial timetable" for withdrawal of U.S. troops. Christine Cegelis, the 2004 Democratic nominee, who held Hyde to 56 percent of the vote, and college professor Lindy Scott, an evangelical Christian, also are running. Cegelis backs troop withdrawal within 6 months.

Cegelis raised and spent $193,947 in 2004, and she had raised only $48,972 through September of 2005. That was unacceptable to Washington Democrats, but foisting Duckworth on the local party is equally unacceptable. Cegelis has been around the track once and performed well, and party activists believe that she deserves a second chance. Duckworth has been endorsed by Obama, Emanuel and U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, and they have sponsored fund-raisers for her.

However, most local Democratic organizations have stuck with Cegelis. It's the "outsider" versus the "invader." My prediction: Duckworth will narrowly beat Cegelis, and then narrowly lose to the Republican candidate, state Senator Peter Roskam.