April 27, 2011
"MOTHER'S MILK" FUELS O'CONNOR'S WIN IN 41ST WARD

ANALYSIS & OPINION BY RUSS STEWART

"Money," famously observed Jesse Unruh, the onetime boss of the California State Assembly, "is the mother's milk of politics."

To expand upon and embellish that apt metaphor, Maurita Gavin lost the 41st Ward aldermanic race because she lacked enough political lactose.

Mary O'Connor, the ward's Democratic committeeman, edged Gavin on April 5 by 7,354-7,104, getting 50.9 percent of the vote and winning by a meager margin of 250 votes. From July 1, 2010, through March 31, O'Connor raised $98,763, had $17,933 in in-kind contributions and spent $109,780, while Gavin raised $77,836 and spent $68,713.

During the 5-week runoff campaign, O'Connor had eight wardwide mailings, of which three were paid for by the Service Employees International Union Illinois Council, a political action committee, five were paid for by the candidate's Friends of O'Connor, and one was paid for by 40th Ward Alderman Pat O'Connor's Citizens for O'Connor. Gavin had just one mailing.

"We lacked the money," acknowledged outgoing Alderman Brian Doherty, whose political operation backed Gavin, his top aide for 15 years. "We had a superb field organization, but she had the money for more mailings. Had the election been held a week or so later, we would have won."

 "Her negative mailers featured unflattering photos of Maurita and blamed Maurita for every ward problem," Doherty added. "Voters, especially women, resented it."

O'Connor's mailers were more positive than negative, highlighting her endorsements by the Tribune and the Sun-Times, emphasizing her ownership of a small catering business, claiming that experience "putting people to work" would enable her to treat ward residents "like customers," and promising a "trained, courteous staff" to provide services. She also pledged to seek "tough reform to change politics as usual in Chicago," a "crackdown on pay-to-play politics" and an effort to "identify wasteful spending."

Wait a minute. Hasn't Rich Daley, a Democrat, been Chicago's mayor for 22 years? Aren't the feds investigating pay-to-play politics in the Daley Administration? That's what the Hired Truck Program scandal was all about. Doesn't the city bureaucracy control the dispensation of city services? In the 41st Ward, police manpower in the 16th District is being deployed elsewhere, and property taxes are increasing while property values are decreasing.

So who does O'Connor blame? Not our beloved mayor. Three O'Connor mailers ripped Gavin, one for "promising to continue the level of service you've come to expect from Maurita Gavin's office," blaming her for potholes, Doherty's lack of an aldermanic Web site and the lack of a recycling program in the ward, a second for having "worked in the Alderman's office" but opposing "having the Inspector General track corruption in Aldermanic offices," and a third for allegedly opposing such investigations "in a city where 31 aldermen have gone to prison."

As circus entrepreneur P.T. Barnum once said, "There's a sucker born every minute," and O'Connor sucked up the sucker vote.

Doherty is the City Council's only Republican, and he is not allied with the "Daley Machine." O'Connor is. Despite having a Democratic mayor, 49 Democratic aldermen of 50, and a 311 call line for city requests, O'Connor successfully demonized Doherty and Gavin as the purveyors of "lousy city services."

That also occurred in last year's campaign, when Illinois Senate Democrats spent close to $1 million attacking Doherty in the Illinois Senate race for "supporting the parking meter lease" and for being responsible for city "waste, mismanagement and corruption." Democrat John Mulroe, O'Connor's ally, beat Doherty for senator in the 10th District, and he lost the 41st Ward to Doherty by just 1,036 votes, getting 46.6 percent of the votes cast.

What's O'Connor's take? "Voters did a cost-benefit analysis," said Jason Hernandez, O'Connor's press spokesman. "She's run a business, managed a budget, has experience." Hernandez said that Doherty and Gavin ran a "cowardly and negative campaign" and circulated a flier attacking O'Connor's voting history. "I'm not surprised their ragtag outfit couldn't raise money," he said.

In the Feb. 22 general election, an eight-candidate field, coupled with the mayoral election, boosted turnout to 20,109 (54.3 percent) in a ward with 37,025 registered voters. O'Connor finished first with 30.5 percent of the vote, to 25.0 percent for Gavin. O'Connor ran first in 36 of the ward's 57 precincts, getting a majority in none but more than 40 percent in five, while Gavin ran first in 18 precincts and got more than 40 percent in one. They tied in one precinct, and Dan Lapinski was first in two.

No candidate was well defined in the general election. It was a friends-and-neighbors campaign or, in the case of O'Connor and Gavin, a deliver-the-base-vote campaign. The other nine contenders got 8,967 votes (44.5 percent of the total cast).

O'Connor's 6,132 votes were more than her 5,744 votes for Democratic committeeman in 2008, but less than Mulroe's 7,266 votes in November. Gavin's 5,030 votes were barely half of Doherty's and Republican state Representative Mike McAuliffe's prior votes.

My pre-April 5 column, which predicted a 30 percent decline in turnout from Feb. 22 and a 7,400-6,600 O'Connor win in a turnout of 14,000, was close to the mark. Turnout on April 5 was 14,458, and O'Connor won 7,354-7,104. O'Connor carried 35 precincts, eight with more than 60 percent of the vote, while Gavin won 21 precincts, five with more than 60 percent of the vote and her home precinct with more than 70 percent.

The line of demarcation was Bryn Mawr Avenue. O'Connor's political and geographic base is to the north, primarily in Edison Park and Edgebrook, with strong support in Norwood Park and the apartment complexes south of the Kennedy Expressway between River Road and Cumberland Avenue. In the general election, O'Connor finished first in 30 of the 36 precincts north of Bryn Mawr. Gavin's (and Doherty's) political and geographic base is to the south, in the 21 precincts centered in Oriole Park and the Union Ridge/Nagle-Foster area, where Gavin finished first in 12 precincts.

O'Connor triumphed on April 5 because she ran stronger in Gavin's base than Gavin ran in hers. O'Connor piled up a 674-vote margin north of Bryn Mawr, getting 5,503 votes (53.3 percent of the total cast) to 4,829 for Gavin in a turnout of 10,322. O'Connor won 28 of the 36 precincts in her base, and she carried eight with more than 60 percent of the vote. O'Connor won only narrowly in the precincts around Saint Juliana Church, where Mulroe is popular, and she got more than 55 percent of the vote in the area near her business at Avondale and Devon avenues. She won four Edgebrook precincts with more than 60 percent of the vote, and she won five of the six apartment precincts along Cumberland. In the general election, O'Connor topped Gavin in the northern portion of the ward by 4,681-3,302, totals which O'Connor increased by 822 votes in the runoff and which Gavin increased by 1,527 votes. Those who backed others in the general election broke for Gavin by a 2-1 margin, but almost half didn't bother to vote.

Gavin won by a 424-vote margin south of Bryn Mawr, getting 2,275 votes (55.1 percent of the total cast) to 1,851 for O'Connor in a turnout of 4,126. Gavin won nine of 12 precincts in Oriole Park and six of eight in the Union Ridge/Nagle area. In the February election, Gavin won her base by 1,728-1,451, a total which she increased by 547 votes in the runoff, to O'Connor's increase of 400 votes. Those who backed others in the general election gravitated to Gavin by only 55 percent to 45 percent, and nearly half didn't vote.

In the general election, 8,947 voters backed somebody other than O'Connor and Gavin. In a runoff turnout of 14,500, where the goal was 7,250 votes, O'Connor needed another 1,118 votes, or 15 percent of those 8,947 voters, while Gavin needed another 2,220 votes, or 25 percent.

Because of her repetitious mailings, endorsements, funding and precinct organization, O'Connor got 1,222 more votes on April 5 than she did on Feb. 22, while Gavin got 2,074 more votes. In the brief runoff campaign, exposure was critical, and O'Connor had the money to buy the exposure.

Will O'Connor be a one-termer? Three developments, over which O'Connor has minimal control, will decide.

First, Chicago's population has declined by 182,066 according to the 2010 census, but population of the 41st Ward hasn't. At least seven of the 57 precincts must be removed from the ward. Expect the 13 precincts south of the Kennedy Expressway and west of Harlem Avenue, including the Doherty/Gavin base in Oriole Park and the Cumberland apartments, to be attached to the 36th Ward. That kills the McAuliffe-Doherty organization as a factor in future ward politics.

Second, expect the five precincts in the northwest sector of the 45th Ward, in the Nagle-Devon area, stretching east to Austin, where runoff loser John Garrido resides, to be attached to the 41st Ward. That removes Garrido as a possible 2015 opponent to John Arena, and it means he has to start anew to build an organization to challenge O'Connor.

And third, the legislative remap will necessitate attaching the 41st Ward to a suburban district, putting Republicans McAuliffe and Rosemary Mulligan in the same Illinois House district and Democrats Mulroe and Dan Kotowski in the same state Senate district. Expect Mulroe to be "promoted" to a judgeship. Should that occur, it removes a vital cog in the O'Connor-Mulroe political machine.