September 14, 2011
SEN. DURBIN LOSES IN 2014 IF OBAMA WINS IN 2012

ANALYSIS & OPINION BY RUSS STEWART

Here's an early prediction: Dick Durbin wins in 2014 if Barack Obama loses in 2012, and Durbin, Illinois' senior senator and the Democratic majority whip, loses in 2014 if the president is reelected in 2012.

Prevailing political and economic trends make a second term for Obama increasingly improbable. The economy will continue to deteriorate and the deficit will balloon, regardless of who wins in 2012. The Obama mantra of "change we need" has morphed into the "charlatan we can't trust." But if a Republican wins the presidency in 2012 and tries to slash Medicare and Social Security entitlements to cut the deficit, the Democrats will roar to victory in the 2014 congressional elections and retake the presidency in 2016.

A flawed 2012 Republican nominee, however, could resurrect the president's prospects, but a second Obama term, absent an economic recovery, would ensure a huge anti-Obama, pro-Republican wave in 2014 and a Republican takeover of the White House in 2016.

This much is certain: Durbin is joined at the proverbial hip to Obama, and he is one of the president's most boisterous cheerleaders in Washington. As detailed in the adjoining vote chart, Durbin is part and parcel of the Obama Administration's agenda. He's in his party's leadership. He's Obama's former Senate colleague. He's as predictably liberal as the day is long. As shown in the chart, Durbin has been an Obama vassal, supporting the president's spending and foreign policy initiatives. Despite his liberal rhetoric, Durbin even backed an extension of the Bush Administration tax cuts, which were due to expire and which Obama embraced; prior to that vote, Durbin opposed an extension of the tax cuts for those earning less than $250,000. Consistency is not a Durbin virtue.

As always, incumbent presidents are held accountable for economic duress, incompetence and scandals, and incumbent pro-president senators bear the brunt of voter wrath. In 2006, as the Bush Administration's credibility and popularity collapsed, Republicans lost six Senate seats, and they lost another eight in 2008. If Obama is still president in 2014 and Durbin seeks reelection, he will bear the stigma of Obama; if a Republican is in the White House and provokes unpopularity through spending cuts, Durbin can run as the anti-Republican and win easily. In the 2010 U.S. Senate race in Illinois, Republican Mark Kirk's 59,220-vote victory was largely attributable to a surge of anti-Obama sentiment.

  Durbin, age 66, of Springfield, is in his third term, and he aspires to be the Senate's Democratic leader when Harry Reid (D-Nev.), age 71, presumably retires in 2016, but the clock is ticking. Chuck Schumer of New York, age 59, the Democrats' Senate Conference vice-chairman, also covets Reid's post. If Durbin wins a fourth term in 2014 and Reid retires in 2016, Durbin will be 72 years old in 2017.

Illinois is a so-called "blue state," which means that the Democrats habitually win statewide elections unless an anti-Democratic "wave" erupts, as it did in 2010. In his first contest in 1996, Durbin faced a flawed Republican, Al Salvi, whom Durbin's television ads isolated as an "extremist" on guns and abortion. Never mind the fact that Durbin, who was a congressman from 1982 to 1996, flip-flopped from pro-life to pro-choice prior to his Senate race. Despite his obscurity, Durbin spent $4.9 million, to $4.7 million for Salvi, and won by a smashing 655,204-vote margin, with 56.6 percent of the vote. Durbin actually had more votes (2,384,028) than Bill Clinton (2,341,744), who carried Illinois by 754,723 votes over Republican Bob Dole, with 346,408 votes to Ross Perot. Durbin carried 50 of Illinois' 102 counties, won Cook County by 664,461 votes, lost the Collar Counties by just 58,220 votes, and won Downstate by 48,385 votes.

In 2002, with the Bush Administration buoyed by reaction to the previous year's September 11 terrorist attacks, Durbin encountered no obstacle. Against Republican Jim Durkin, an obscure state representative from the western Cook County suburbs, Durbin spent $4.9 million, to $800,000 for Durkin, and won by a margin of 778,063 votes, getting 60.3 percent of the vote, carrying 77 counties and winning Cook County by 587,898 votes. Before 2002, with the scandal-stained term of George Ryan coming to a close, much pressure had been placed on Durbin to run for governor. By comparison, Rod Blagojevich was elected governor by a margin of 252,080 votes, with 52.2 percent of the vote.

In 2004, after the Senate Democratic majority leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota was defeated, Reid moved up from whip to be minority leader and Durbin won the job as whip, the Democrats' number two slot. Throughout Bush's two-term tenure, Durbin was a relentlessly partisan Democrat -- a stance which did him no harm in Illinois, and in 2007 Durbin urged Obama, who had been elected in 2004, to run for president and endorsed him over home-state native Hillary Clinton.

In 2008, after the implosion of President Bush's popularity and the emergence of Obama as the Democrats' presidential candidate, Durbin's path to a third term was unimpeded. Durbin spent $13 million against Republican Steve Sauerberg, an obscure physician who spent just $1 million. Durbin rolled to a huge 2,095,223-vote win, getting 67.8 percent of the vote, which actually dwarfed Obama's 1,388,167-vote Illinois margin over John McCain.

Given these prodigious vote performances and his visible and voluble position in the Senate leadership, Durbin should be a lock to win a fourth term in 2014, but he's not, primarily because of his association with Obama.

The Obama imprimatur is no longer golden in Illinois, and it deteriorates along with the economy.  Against Alexi Giannoulias, the state treasurer and Obama's basketball-playing buddy, Kirk won an astounding 98 counties, holding Giannoulias to a Cook County margin of 456,722 votes. Kirk won the Collar Counties by 145,375 votes and Downstate by 370,567 votes. In years past, the formula for Republican victory was to lose Cook County by fewer than 500,000 votes and win Downstate by more than 400,000 and the Collar Counties by upwards of 150,000. The last Republicans who achieved that feat before Kirk were George Ryan and Peter Fitzgerald in 1998.

During the 2010 campaign, Kirk was relentlessly excoriated for his dissembling and alleged dishonesty in padding his resume, and what should have been an easy Kirk win was incredibly tight. Kirk got 1,778,698 votes, not much more than Sauerberg's 1,520,621 in 2008 but a lot more than Durkin's 1,325,703 in 2002. Conversely, Giannoulias's 1,719,478 was well below Durbin's 2,103,766 in 2002 and 3,615,844 in 2008.

Illinois turnout in 2008 was 5,577,509, or 71.6 percent of the state's 7,789,500 registered voters. In 2010, a non-presidential election, turnout dropped to 3,792,770, just 50.5 percent of the registered voters -- a decline of 1,789,743 from 2008.

In 2008 Obama got 3,419,348 votes (61.9 percent of the total cast) in Illinois, to 2,031,179 for McCain. In 2010 Giannoulias, the pro-Obama candidate, got just 50.2 percent of the 2008 Obama vote, while Kirk, a military officer and a 2008 McCain supporter, got 87.5 percent of the 2008 McCain vote.

 A fairly large crowd of Republicans are angling for a shot at governor in 2014, when Democrat Pat Quinn's term expires, including 2010 loser Bill Brady and 2010 primary loser Kirk Dillard, both state senators, and state Treasurer Dan Rutherford. The much-defeated Jim Oberweis, if he wins an Illinois Senate seat in 2012, also will run, as might Illinois Senate minority leader Christine Radogno. Pressure will be most intense on Brady to switch to the Senate race.

The bottom line: In the past 2 years Durbin backed the debt increase to $14.69 trillion and tried to raise it to $16.69 trillion, supported the stimulus, the financial markets bailout, the Obama health-care plan and an increase in discretionary spending to $1.22 trillion, and opposed eliminating budget-busting "earmarks." While Bush was president, Durbin voted to withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq. He also opposed bills to declare a fetus an "unborn child" and to make English the official U.S. language.

But that won't matter in 2014: If Obama is in office and unpopular, Durbin is doomed; if Obama's out of office and forgotten, Durbin will win.