Posted on 11/14/2004 12:12:09 PM PST by Kuksool
The Tenth Dems knew they were gaining ground when a Republican spy showed up.
The mole attended a March meet-up in Lake County of John Kerry supporters, sponsored by the Tenth Dems, a group of 10th Congressional District Democrats.
On a conservative Illinois political Web site later that same night, the spy reported back.
More than 40 "eager" volunteers attended, the mole wrote. They even collected checks written out to "John Kerry for President."
"If we could only get something this effective ... going for our candidates," the writer mused.
The Republicans were right to be worried, and a bit envious - and not just about the Tenth Dems' ability to organize.
A Daily Herald analysis of presidential voting patterns throughout the suburbs shows that over the course of the past five presidential elections, the once-solidly Republican suburbs have swung their support to the Democratic candidate by 15 percentage points.
In fact, not one suburban township has grown more Republican.
Though every suburban county except Cook still came out for President Bush on Nov. 2, the margin of victory in those counties overall has shrunk to less than 5 percentage points.
By comparison, Bush's father defeated his own East Coast liberal opponent in 1988 with 62 percent of the vote in suburban Cook, Kane, Lake, DuPage and McHenry counties, a margin of victory of 25 percentage points.
That Democratic shift means it will be extremely difficult for Republican candidates, presidential or otherwise, to win statewide elections unless something significant alters the playing field.
"What's happening in the suburbs is very dramatic," said political scientist Sam Gove, who co-authored the 1996 book "Illinois Politics and Government: The Expanding Metropolitan Frontier."
Gove believes the changing political climate can be attributed to new people moving into the suburbs - people who don't fall in line with suburban conservative heavyweights like James "Pate" Philip of Wood Dale, the former state Senate president; state Rep. Lee Daniels of Elmhurst; or lame duck Congressman Phil Crane of Wauconda.
"The movement of the people out there ... they're a different type of people and they tend to be independent thinkers," Gove added. "I think it's the movement of people from the old patterns. The Pate Philip types, I think, are gone."
Shifting allegiances
That the Chicago suburbs are becoming more Democratic is not new - the trend has been followed since the Democrats did the then-unthinkable by winning a state Senate seat and the recorder of deeds office in Lake County in 1996.
The Daily Herald's analysis, however, finds the numbers that confirm the anecdotal evidence.
The newspaper analyzed results for the five presidential elections since 1988 in all 90 suburban townships in Cook, DuPage, Lake, Kane and McHenry counties. Will County, which includes the far South suburbs, was not included.
Among the findings:
• Every suburban township has shifted Democratic to varying degrees. The biggest shift came in South Suburban Cook County's Thornton Township, which has shifted almost 30 percentage points since 1988.
• In 1988, just seven of the 90 townships analyzed supported Democrat Michael Dukakis. In this month's election, Kerry won 30 townships.
• Among those who voted for Kerry are one-time Republican strongholds such as Naperville Township - which voted 72 percent Republican in 1988 - and Addison Township, which voted 67 percent Republican in 1988 and is home to Pate Philip.
What's causing it?
Political observers offer several reasons for the shift.
The most significant, Gove said, is the growing number of new families moving to the suburbs - particularly voters from the Democratic stronghold of Chicago.
The number of presidential votes cast in Chicago earlier this month was down 4 percent from 1988, according to data from the Chicago Election Commission.
In the suburbs - which grew by about 1 million people between 1990 and 2003 - the number of people who cast ballots earlier this month was 20 percent higher than in 1988.
When those new residents started moving to the suburbs decades ago, many Republican leaders figured the Democratic voters among them would change their colors.
The fact that that hasn't happened in many cases confounds some of today's Republican leaders.
"I always find it funny that Democrats run out to DuPage County for the quality of life that we have ... yet they want to change it and go back to a system that leads to higher crime, greater taxation and inferior schools," said state Sen. Kirk Dillard, a Republican from Hinsdale who leads the DuPage County Republicans.
State Sen. William Peterson, a Long Grove Republican, said today's electorate also is more independent than it was years ago.
"I don't see more Democrats or Republicans," Peterson said. "I just see people who go back and forth on the ballot choosing individual candidates. So the candidates really have to sell themselves."
The suburbs also have grown more diverse over the past decade, and conventional wisdom says minorities are more likely to cast ballots for Democrats. In the 1990 census, roughly 86 percent of suburbanites were white. That number fell to about 79 percent in the census bureau's 2003 American Community Survey.
The changing demographics have taken their toll, Dillard admitted.
"I don't think that there has been enough of an effort by Republican leaders in the suburbs to educate the new immigrants, whether they come from Cook County, California or Asia, as to why the person probably moved to places like DuPage County to begin with," he said.
Yet more is at play here than demographics.
Democrats' success is a function of the changing suburban landscape, but it also reflects the party's newfound emphasis on recruiting local candidates.
Perhaps most importantly, the party's control of the 2002 legislative redistricting process allowed Democratic map makers to string together increasingly Democratic townships and precincts to create competitive districts in the suburbs.
Disarray in the Illinois Republican Party in recent years - including the criminal indictment of former Gov. George Ryan, a Republican - certainly hasn't helped, staining the party's public image and leaving its organization in shambles.
Republican concern
If Republicans still are winning every suburban county except Cook, why should they be worried?
Historically, for a Republican to win a statewide election, the candidate had to win by healthy margins in the suburbs and downstate to offset Chicago's Democratic margins of 3-to-1 or greater.
George H.W. Bush did just that in 1988, winning 58 percent of the vote in suburban Cook.
It was the last time a Republican presidential candidate won the Cook suburbs or - not coincidentally - carried Illinois.
On a state level, Republican Jim Edgar won suburban Cook - and a key to the governor's mansion - in 1990 and 1994. George Ryan did the same in 1998.
In 2002, however, Democrat Rod Blagojevich won the race for governor. He did it, in part, by winning suburban Cook and keeping the margins down in Lake County.
"The Democrats are now competing in once all-powerful Republican townships in north and northwest Cook County," said Paul Green, a political science professor at Roosevelt University who studies city and suburban voting patterns.
"As far as the collars are concerned, the bottom line is the percent differences," Green added. "The Republicans are now hurting. Instead of building up big, big margins to offset some of the Chicago vote for Democrats, they still have margins, but they're down significantly. Especially in places like Lake County and DuPage County."
Reversing a trend
Dwindling suburban vote margins, continued political infighting and the lingering shadow of Ryan's scandal - his trial is expected to start next year - paint a dismal picture for a Republican turnaround in the suburbs.
But the trend is not irreversible, Republicans say.
Though there is no clear plan at this point, Republicans expect to have new leadership - and a clearer vision of their future - in the coming months.
That's when state Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka is expected to step down as party chairman. Once a new leader is chosen, that person will set sights on unifying the party and raising money to take back statewide offices in 2006.
The governor's office will top the ticket, and Republican leaders say they hope to run a candidate who can go toe-to-toe with Blagojevich, should he run for re-election.
That means holding their own against the governor's engaging personality on the campaign trail, as well as a Blagojevich campaign fund that is expected to reach $20 million.
But that's not all, said House Republican leader Tom Cross of Oswego.
"We're going to need somebody who's moderately conservative. I don't think we can have somebody who's too far to the right. We certainly don't want somebody to the left of center," Cross said.
"Somebody who can bring the Republican Party together, focus on issues that unite Republican voters and attract some independents, and not issues that divide everybody. I think that's going to be a challenge for any Republican to get through a primary and then to win the general (election)."
Cross admits that at this point he's not sure who that person is.
Republicans also are quick to point out that just 10 years ago, they were in the political catbird seat, controlling all aspects of state government, save the Illinois Supreme Court. It's a historical lesson that shows the Democrats could fall apart just as quickly.
Scandal is known to propel political makeovers, as witnessed by the fallout from Ryan's tenure. So Republicans have taken keen interest in the growing trucking and towing contract scandals in Chicago.
"It should give a signal that something is dramatically wrong with the Democratic-controlled city," said Peterson, the Republican state senator from Lake County. "I certainly look at it as an opening for Republicans."
Past elections have shown that the state will rise up against what it perceives to be tainted Chicago Democrats. The 1998 U.S. Senate race essentially pitted Chicago against the rest of the state. Democrat Carol Moseley-Braun had a nearly 400,000-vote lead thanks to Cook County. She won only four other counties, most by only a few hundred votes.
Inverness Republican Peter Fitzgerald carried the remaining 97 counties, wiped out the Cook County margin in the suburbs and won by 98,545 statewide.
Cross also noted Republicans saw glimmers of hope this year in legislative races.
For the first time in 10 years, Republicans gained a seat in the Illinois House, knocking off a Peoria-area Democrat. State Senate Republicans also gained a seat in the LaSalle-Peru area.
Such gains in an admittedly awful year for Illinois Republicans have them believing they might be able to turn the table on Democrats in 2006.
"Two years is a lifetime in this business," Cross said, "and anything can happen."
I live in Du Page County, IL. In the days of Reagan, Du Page voted Republican, 65% - 70%. For the 2004 election, Du Page voted for Bush by only 54-45. Obama whipped Keyes, 65-31 in Du Page. Alan Keyes has said that he plans on sticking around in my state for a while longer. No doubt, he intends to see if he can drive more voters to the Democratic Party.
This is a nationwide trend, or rather parallel nationwide trends. Wherever the suburbs are growing mainly because of people moving out of cities, they are trending Democrat. Wherever they're growing mainly because of people moving in from rural areas, they are trending Republican.
If the Illinois Republican Party ever grows a brain and starts vetting their candidates (immediate step) and grooming future candidates, the Illinois Dems will be crying in their beer as loudly as all the other Blue-Staters.
That's right. Old Suburbs are turning from Red to Blue and the new Exurbs are turning Red. So in a way both parties are gaining new votes outside their existing geographical power bases.
Talk about putting lipstick on a pig! Why waste that much space when the real story is in the last couple paragraphs.
The same thing is happening in small towns across Connecticut. The liberals in the cities move to get away from the high taxes, crime and lousy schools. Unfortunately, they're too stupid to learn and they immediately try to re-create the same situation in their new community. They all want bigger schools and libraries and all sorts of expanded services. Lots of them have great high paying jobs and they have no qualms about making the rest of us pay for their wants.
I've heard about a study that concluded that liberals who move down south from the northeast over time tend to become more conservative in their political views. I suppose it will take 2-3 election cycles before the new suburbanites realize it pays to consider Republican candidates, but they seem to vote the person, not the party. In the redder states, this pattern benefits the GOP. At least IL is not a swing state, so the Repubs have a luxury here to build up their party and move patiently. Well, that's what my relatives in DuPage and Cook Co. tell me anyway.
You have unique problems there in IL. With the Ryans (how many of them bombed for the GOP?) and Alan Keyes ("lemme see how unattractive I can make my conservative position"), you have taken a lot of hits. If you hang in there and stay solid, things are bound to swing your way, as they have in other MidWest states.
BTW, what heppened in Colorado???
Exactly. As I said, they take their voting habits with them. Its human nature and its reassuring its predictable. Otherwise no one could ever write a definitive account of American elections. Just ask Michael Barone.
Its happening all over the country. Both liberals and conservatives are on the move. Before long, the map will be completely reconfigured.
What do you think the mind-set is of those that live in cities such as Philadelphia? You're a minority, you're poor and the entire community is in shambles. Services have broken down and the surroundings resemble a third world nation. Corruption is rampant and government is uncaring, unaccountable and lethargic. Every elected official from dog catcher to Mayor is a democrat and most of them are minorities. This goes on for years and year and through many different state and federal administrations. Do any of these people ever stop and ponder that the same old thing isn't working any longer?
I was thinking of the last municipal election in Philly where the GOP candidate (Katz?) was reported to have had a chance. My God, you'd have thought they had it great and that the Republican was going to come along and take all that away from them..
The idiot who wrote this doesn't have a clue. Conservative voters are leaving hellholes like Chicago and LA in droves. There are few real Republicans left running for office in these areas, only RINOs who are indeed feckless and shouldn't be elected by any party. So these cities and states will in the future be written off and ignored. Why would any conservative waste time campaigning for office there? My beef is with continuing to subsidize these failed places with red state tax dollars. Texas, for one, sends more tax money to D.C. than we get benefits back. Our gasoline taxes alone send astronomical amounts to the feds due to the long distances we travel. I'm for cutting off this largess.
This is not surprising. Many conservative Republicans either moved away to retire or died. Many urban white liberals have moved to the suburbs in persuit of a more tranquil life, and retained thier liberalism. As a result, suburban Chicago is becoming more like the city its new residents left behind.
There is a similar trend in downstate Illinois, though it's less pronounced. Conservative Republicans are moving away or dying. Socially conservative Democrats are voting their pocketbooks, and a stuborn recession isn't helping matters. Also, population loss is making the university towns a larger presence there than before.
All in all, it's fortunate that Bush ran as strongly in Illinois as he did. I had expected a larger Kerry margin.
If I were a John Bircher or a conspiracy theorist, I would think that Alan Keyes and the committee who nominated him were on the 'Rat Party's payroll.
Everyone knew that Keyes had no chance of winning, but thought he could provide a serious discussion of issues. Instead, he turned out to be the joke of the year. When he claimed that Jesus supported his candidacy, even Christian conservatives were embarrassed by him.
The state G.O.P. should give Alan Keyes a special Christmas present: An all-expense paid, one-way ticket to Baghdad.
Knock Keyes if you like, but what other Republican do you suppose will bring so many votes in a Senate Race?
Peter Fitzgerald is a popular Senator and chose not to run for re-election because he says that a Republican in IL starts 10% behind, and he's right. He had no chance of winning.
I volunteered for Jim Durkin in 2002, a very popular candidate with a great state record. Fairly moderate guy, with a 100% farmer rating. He was a state Senator with great bi-partisan backing and name recognition.
Jim Durkin got 1,317,196 votes for Senate in 2002. He lost in a landslide.
Alan Keyes has received (so far...votes are still being counted) 1,376,044 votes and counting. That's a five percent IMPROVEMENT since 2002. He also lost in a landslide.
Dupage is becoming more Democrat by the year, no doubt about it. Here in Wheaton, I saw so many Kerry/Edwards and Obama signs that it made me sick. We have to accept that an exploding minority population, just like in AZ and NV, as well as other factors, are shifting every county in our state. Dems hold all the statewide offices despite the fact that Republicans regularly run RINOS. Dupage is getting more Democrat every election and just following the trend of the state. As the population booms, so does the Dems' support.
I too am shocked by how many people move out to Wheaton/Glen Ellyn because they have the lowest crime rates around, are among the best schools in the entire nation, lowest teen pregnancy rates, etc. etc. and then immediately decide that they need to vote everybody out (fire them) and replace them all with Democrats. They just don't get it.
Keyes did better in a statewide Senate election than anyone else would have. Nobody on our side has brought out more voters than he did. That's what is so sad about the Keyes run....he actually got more voters out than Durkin or anyone else.
Keyes can't do any more "harm" to this state. This state is doing it to itself. I've never seen a candidate get 100% positive press before; even Kerry had to answer some charges (Swiftees, medals, etc.). Obama never had a single moment of bad press. Not once. Never.
You just can't beat that. And who in IL do Conservatives turn to? Even Pat O'Malley couldn't win the primary in 2002.
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