October 6, 2010
ILLINOISANS SUFFER ACID REFLUX IN U.S. SENATE CHOICE

ANALYSIS & OPINION BY RUSS STEWART

Republican Peter Fitzgerald is gone and forgotten, but in 1998, when he won his first and only term as U.S. senator, he accomplished a daunting feat: He carried Downstate by 328,264 votes, getting 62.4 percent of the vote and the five the Collar Counties by 164,442 votes (62.4 percent) while losing Cook County by 394,161 votes (35.3 percent).

That's the historic prescription for a Republican victory: Win Downstate and the Collar Counties by enough to offset Cook County's habitual Democratic margin.

It helps to have a flawed Democratic opponent. A fiscal and social conservative, the bland and uncharismatic Fitzgerald was thought unelectable, but incumbent Carol Moseley Braun's antics and questionable ethics spelled her doom. Being a black liberal Chicagoan, she had negligible appeal outside of Cook County. Fitzgerald won statewide by 98,545 votes.

In the past decade every Democrat, flawed or otherwise, has won statewide, with gigantic margins in Cook County and dwindling Republican margins elsewhere. Rod Blagojevich won Cook County for governor by 468,974 votes in 2002 and by 508,605 votes in 2006, and Barack Obama won Cook County for president in 2008 by 1,141,288 votes. In fact, Obama won the Collar Counties by 171,814 votes and Downstate by 75,067 votes.

But U.S. Senate in Illinois this year race is developing into a hybrid of 1998. Both candidates, Republican Mark Kirk and Democrat Alexi Giannoulias are, at best, flawed, and, at worst, execrable. Voters feel as though they're choosing between a kick in the groin and a poke in the eye.

Kirk, a 10-year North Shore congressman, has come to be perceived as a serial liar, utterly devoid of principle, with no moral compass. In short, a crass opportunist and an ideological windsock. Giannoulias, the one-term state treasurer, is perceived as a clueless idiot, utterly lacking in judgment, whose performance as an officer at his now-defunct family bank was beyond inept. In short, out of his league.

The candidates' shortcomings -- Kirk's persistent exaggerations of his military record and Giannoulias's incompetence as treasurer and as a banker - mean that voters must choose the least unacceptable candidate. A plethora of media ads reinforce that theme: I'm not perfect, they say, but my opponent is worse.

To date, Kirk and Giannoulias have each spent more than $2 million. Neither has captured voters' imagination. The latest Illinois Fox News/Rasmussen poll gave Obama a 46 percent/46 percent approval/disapproval rating, had health-care reform at 45 percent/45 percent, and put Kirk ahead by just 42 percent-40 percent, with a hefty 18 percent of the voters undecided. A Chicago Tribune poll has Giannoulias ahead 38 percent-36 percent, a CNN/Time poll had Giannoulias ahead 43 percent-42 percent, and a Suffolk poll had Kirk up 42 percent-41 percent. Clearly, there is resistance to each candidate.

The Green Party candidate is LeAlan Jones, who is black. If he gets 3 to 5 percent of the vote, or more than 125,000 votes, Giannoulias loses.

In other states, Republican candidates are attempting to "nationalize" their campaigns, making it a referendum on Obama and the Democratic Congress. In Illinois, it's the obverse. Giannoulias is embracing the president, pledging to be a pro-Obama senator, supporting Obama's liberal agenda and running television ads featuring Obama. The only way Giannoulias can win is to make the election a referendum on Obama.

"It's a very calculated risk," observed a Chicago Democratic politician of Giannoulias's strategy. "A lot of people love the president, but a sizable amount hate him. Alexi is counting on a big black vote" in Cook County, but "that could be offset by a big anti-Obama vote Downstate."

Although the Democratic Party has imploded, beset with scandals and incompetence, and although Illinois' unemployment rate hovers above 10 percent, the "I love Barack" strategy is Giannoulias's only plausible path to victory. The president is still popular in Illinois. The Obama haters, Tea Partiers and conservatives will flock to the polls, and Kirk will get their vote by default -- not because they like him, but because they want to repudiate Obama.

By embracing Obama, Giannoulias hopes to solidify his black base and entice the marginally dissatisfied 2008 Obama voters to reaffirm their faith and vote for him.

In 1998 Braun beat Fitzgerald in Chicago by 552,729-145,540, getting 79.1 percent of the vote, and she got 315,890 of her votes in the 20 black-majority wards. In 2008 Obama beat John McCain in Chicago by 919,447-147,532, with 86.1 percent of the vote, and he got 453,152 of his votes in the black wards. The difference: This is not a presidential year, so turnout will be down by a quarter. Giannoulias will not replicate Obama's or Braun's vote among black voters, but he cannot win unless he gets 300,000 votes in the black wards.

In the five-candidate primary, Giannoulias had near-monolithic support from white Chicago committeemen and Downstate county chairmen. Yet he finished with a weak 38.9 percent of the vote (352,202 votes), getting 35.7 percent in Chicago, 37.4 percent in the suburbs, 41.5 percent in the Collar Counties and 44.3 percent Downstate. The 304,757 votes (33.7 percent) drawn by David Hoffman, cast by anti-Machine liberals, will not necessarily gravitate to Giannoulias.

Downstate is Kirk's firewall. Fitzgerald won the area by 822,031-494,037, a margin of 327,994 votes, which negated Braun's black vote. McCain lost Downstate by 75,067 votes. Republican Bill Brady will win the area by close to 400,000 votes over Pat Quinn, and he will drag Kirk with him.

In states such as Kentucky and Nevada, so-called "crackpot" Republicans are competitive because they're running anti-Obama campaigns in an anti-Obama environment. Illinois is not such an environment, which is why Kirk is struggling. He can't frontally attack Obama. As a veteran office holder and q resume embellisher, he can't posture as an "outsider." He is devoid of charisma. And he is distrusted, if not despised, by Republican conservatives.

My prediction: Statewide turnout will be around 3.4 million, well down from 5.5 million in 2008 -- a 2.1 million drop-off, the bulk of which will be Obama voters.  McCain got 2,031,179 votes, which is the Republican base; that's 300,000 more votes than Fitzgerald got in 1998. Obama got 3,419,348 votes, which is double the 1998 Braun vote.

The arithmetic is simple: 1.7 million is the magic number. Kirk wins if he pulls 84 percent of the 2008 McCain voters to the polls; Giannoulias wins if he entices just half of the 2008 Obama voters to the polls. That validates Giannoulias's strategy. To be sure, 10 to 15 percent of the Obama "independents" will opt for Kirk, which should ensure his election.

An unflawed Kirk would have won easily. Instead, he will win narrowly -- by fewer than 50,000 votes.

10th District (North Shore suburbs: east Lake County and northern Cook County): Kirk is vacating this seat, and Democrat Dan Seals, who lost to Kirk in 2006, getting 46.6 percent of the vote, and in 2008 with 47.4 percent of the vote, is running ahead of Republican Bob Dold, a pest control company owner and a novice candidate who may not fit the "moderate" Kirk mold. Kirk was fiscally conservative in the Senate, but he supported abortion rights, gay rights and gun control.

The district "went for Clinton, Gore, Kerry and Obama," said Seals campaign spokesperson Aviva Gibbs. "It is not a Tea Party district. It is not a socially conservative district. Seals represents (the district's) core values." The campaign's internal polling shows Seals leading by 13 percentage points, Gibbs said.

Obama won the district 181,071-114,035 in 2008, while Kirk won by 153,082-138,136. Seals spent $3.5 million, fervently embraced Obama and unleashed a torrent of television ads tying Kirk to George Bush, yet ran a stunning 42,895 votes behind Obama. Kirk ran 39,074 votes ahead of McCain.

Going into this election, Seals was viewed as damaged goods, a two-time loser. He won the primary by 959 votes. But the 10th District might just be counter-cyclical, going against the flow.

Seals has re-invented himself. He now supports the extension of the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts, he opposes Obama's Afghanistan troop surge, he opposes any further stimulus spending, and he claims the costs of "Obamacare" are not sustainable. He rips Dold as an extremist, accusing him of flip-flopping on abortion.

"He has unabashedly supported the Obama agenda," said Kelly Klopp, Dold's spokewoman. "He's trying to portray himself as independent. Voters won't buy it."

The district has 514 precincts -- 293 in Cook County and 221 in Lake County. In 2006, in a turnout of 202,207, Kirk won Cook County by 12,358 votes and Lake County by 1,393; in 2008, in a turnout of 291,258, Kirk won Cook by 16,498 and lost Lake by 1,592.

My prediction: The battleground is New Trier, Northfield and Palatine townships. Turnout will be 200,000. Seals' base is 90,000 votes. He must peel off more than 10,000 past Kirk voters. "Our polls show that 16 percent of (district) Kirk (for U.S. Senate) voters are backing Dan," Gibbs said.

Seals has "localized" the race, making it a choice between himself and Dold, not a referendum on Obama. A Dold win would be an upset.