October 25, 2006
HOLD-YOUR-NOSE ELECTION MEANS BLAGOJEVICH WIN
ANALYSIS & OPINION BY RUSS STEWART
For those who consider themselves to be political prognosticators, here's a true-or-false quiz on the Nov. 7 election:
(1) Judy Baar Topinka will barely top 40 percent of the vote in the Illinois governor's race, the worst of any Republican since Len Small got 40.7 percent in 1932.
(2) Democratic incumbent Rod Blagojevich will be re-elected with just over 45 percent of the vote, thereby setting a record for the lowest winning percentage in modern times. Democrat Edward Dunne won in 1912 with 38.1 percent, beating a Republican candidate (27.4 percent) and a Progressive candidate (26.1 percent).
(3) If Illinois had a Nevada-style ballot, which lists "None of the Above," about a fifth of Illinois' voters would opt for that choice.
(4) Green Party candidate Rich Whitney, simply by not yet being perceived as goofy, calculating, deceitful, arrogant, ungrateful, corrupt, phony or George's Ryan heir -- adjectives which attach to either Topinka or Blagojevich -- will get the "None of the Above" vote, finishing with a remarkable 15 percent share of the vote, the highest for a third-party candidate since 1912.
(5) Blagojevich's second-term administration will be wracked by a plethora of federal indictments and convictions of the governor's cronies and fund-raisers, and Blagojevich himself could be indicted before his term ends in January 2011.
(6) Blagojevich will run for president in 2008.
(7) Blagojevich will be convicted of conspiracy and other federal offenses in time to join George Ryan in the federal slammer before Ryan is paroled.
If you answered "True" to the first five questions, don't pat yourself on the back and think you're a political genius. Instead, consider yourself able to discern the obvious. If you answered "False" to more than two, you're likely Blagojevich contributor who is still waiting to get a return on the investment.
Here are some observations on the campaign:
* Poor, nasty, brutish and short. That's life in the natural world, according to 17th Century social philosopher Thomas Hobbes, the author of "Leviathan." Blagojevich has proven that by spending $600,000 a week on nasty television attack ads, he can make his opponent's political life brutish. His anti-Topinka ads had 1,000 gross rating points, so that the average viewer saw the ad at least 10 times. They began in late May and are still running, supplemented by positive Blagojevich ads.
The governor is not squandering his cash on yard signs, mailings, bumper stickers, precinct handouts or other such nonsense. He has raised $25 million over the past 2 years, and about $20 million of that went for media buys. The rationale is clear: The governor's image is that he is vacuous and his accomplishments are minimal. Throughout his first term, his polling "unfavorables" exceeded his "favorables." What to do? Either spend to rehabilitate and redefine himself or spend to vilify and demonize his opponent. Blagojevich chose the latter.
And the result is the stuff of legend. After the March primary, polls gave Topinka a slight lead, in the range of 44-37 percent. In no poll did the governor exceed 41 percent, and his "unfavorables" were near 50 percent. So Blagojevich decided to transform the quirky and quippy state treasurer into a quacky and goofy "George Ryan Republican." He succeeded. "What is she thinking?" is the tagline in the ads, and Topinka is ridiculed and brutalized for real and imagined sins. The latest Glengariff poll, taken in early October, astoundingly put Topinka's "favorables" at just 25 percent and her "unfavorables" at 49 percent (compared to Blagojevich's 35-43), and the governor led by 39-30 percent, with 9 percent for Whitney and 20 percent undecided.
A Chicago Tribune/WGN-TV poll has Blagojevich up 43-29 percent, and a Rasmussen poll had him up 44-36. That was prior to the 24-count federal indictment on Oct. 11 of Blagojevich fund-raiser and family business partner Tony Rezko on charges of conspiracy and extortion. According to U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, it's "pay to play on steroids" in state government. And Blagojevich, who never wondered why so many civic-minded people contributed almost $50 million to his campaign in the past 6 years, whined that he felt "betrayed . . . sad . . . let down, dismayed and disappointed." Sort of how most Illinois voters feel about him.
But never mind. After pounding Topinka's reputation to a pulp, the governor's safety net is in place. He knows that the undecideds, who normally break 80-20 for the challenger over the incumbent, aren't going anywhere near Topinka. Some will hold their nose and back "Governor Mophead," but a goodly chunk will vote for Whitney.
In any other state, nation or universe, a governor whose top fund-raiser is under indictment and who is polling under 40 percent would be a laughable loser. Instead, it's Topinka who is the object of derision, and it's Blagojevich who is formidable.
* Lucky, lucky man. In retrospect, the turning point of the governor's campaign was the noncandidacy of black state Senator James Meeks (D-15), who was critical of Blagojevich's education programs. Meeks toyed with the idea of an independent candidacy, but polls put him under 10 percent and he abandoned his plans after Blagojevich made promises of more school funding. How he must wish otherwise now.
Meeks is far more credible than Whitney, and he would have drawn a huge black and liberal independent vote. In 2002 Blagojevich beat Republican Jim Ryan by just 252,080 votes; he won Chicago's black wards by 271,303-16,559 and the four black-majority suburban townships by 71,997-19,803. That's a margin of 306,938 votes, or 54,858 more votes than his statewide margin. Had Meeks run, Blagojevich's black vote would have evaporated.
The Illinois situation does not resemble that of Minnesota in 1998, when Jesse Ventura rode a wave of nausea with the major party candidates (and negative tactics) to win the governorship with 37 percent of the vote. Ventura was a celebrity. A more apt analogy is the 1956 Illinois governor's race, in which incumbent Republican Bill Stratton won a second term by just 36,877 votes. Stratton won his first term in 1952 by 227,642 votes, but a scandal in the state auditor's office tarred all Republicans, making Cook County Treasurer Herb Paschen the favorite. But then a "flower fund" scandal rocked Paschen's campaign and he quit the race, being replaced by Judge Richard Austin.
Since both parties seemed infused by corruption, voters held their collective noses and chose Stratton, although the total vote was down by more than 100,000 from 1952 to 1956. The same holds true for 2006: Republicans are saddled with Ryan's escapades, and Democrats have their Chicago Hired Truck scandal, and now the expansion of the federal investigation into county and state hiring.
My prediction: There is just no enthusiasm this year. Back in 2002, Democrats fixated on the fact that no Democrat had been governor for 26 years, and Blagojevich's father-in-law, Alderman Dick Mell, promised everybody that "The Kid" would be a veritable Santa Claus in Springfield, doling out jobs and contracts to worthy Democrats.
Since then Blagojevich has repudiated Mell, has doled out jobs to those who contribute, and has been intentionally uncooperative with the General Assembly's Democratic majority. The Democratic "establishment" could care less if "The Kid" wins, and they probably prefer Topinka, since she would work with them and likely would raise taxes.
In addition, a series of state scandals would, at best, undermine the Democrats' chances of holding the governorship in 2010, when Attorney General Lisa Madigan is set to run for the post. At worst, if Blagojevich were removed from office, the much-detested Lieutenant Governor Pat Quinn would move up, and his independence riles legislators even more than Blagojevich's arrogance.
Back in 2002 Blagojevich successfully demonized Jim Ryan as an "extremist" on social issues and criticized him for not ferreting out corruption in George Ryan's administration. He called himself the "New Way," and he won because he was not named Ryan.
Blagojevich carried 35 of Illinois' 102 counties. He won Cook County by 466,974 votes, carrying Chicago by 416,050 votes and the suburbs by 50,924 votes. A Republican, to win statewide, must hold the Democrat's margin to fewer than 400,000 votes in Cook County.
In the Collar Counties of DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry and Will, Ryan beat Blagojevich by just 147,338 votes, a pathetically small margin for a Republican. In the other 96 counties, Ryan won by only 69,556 votes. Because of the interaction of Mell with numerous Downstate Democratic county chairmen, and the promises of jobs, "The Kid" ran amazingly well in rural areas.
Topinka's game plan is to win Downstate by 200,000 votes and the Collar Counties by 200,000 and to hold Blagojevich's margin under 400,000 in Cook County. That won't happen. The governor is highly unpopular Downstate, and he will lose there by 180,000 votes, but Topinka's support is soft in the Collar Counties, where she'll win by 125,000 votes, with Whitney doing well.
Topinka hoped that white Chicago Democratic committeemen would "cut" Blagojevich. Instead, they're just ignoring the governor's race. Turnout was 3.5 million in 2002. It will drop to 3.3 million in 2006. Blagojevich will get 1.48 million votes, to Topinka's 1.32 million, with Whitney getting almost 500,000.