Illinois Winners Spent $200 : Everyone Sharing Blame for Far-Right Vote Victory

A lethargic Democratic organization, lackadaisical campaigning and inattentive news media were cited Thursday for the surprise Illinois Democratic primary nominations of two supporters of ultraconservative Lyndon La-Rouche.

Responsibility for the upset was being liberally shared by everybody from candidates and campaign consultants to precinct workers and newspaper editors.

The victory of the far-right candidates for lieutenant governor and secretary of state left the Illinois political landscape shattered and the campaign of Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Adlai E. Stevenson III in shambles.

“They are neo-Nazis and, if the Democratic ticket has neo-Nazis on it, the Republican Party is going to bury us in a sea of straight ticket votes in November,” lamented David Axelrod, the chief campaign strategist for Stevenson.

The two LaRouche supporters, Mark Fairchild, 28, and Janice A. Hart, 31, spent a total of $200, and there were no indications that either mounted a particularly slick or broad-based campaign.

Nevertheless, they humiliated what was once viewed as one of the most powerful Democratic organizations in the nation by defeating a veteran state senator, George Sangmeister, who was running for lieutenant governor, and secretary of state candidate Aurelia Pucinski, whose father is a Chicago city councilman.

“It’s not a fluke,” insisted Gerald Pechenuk, campaign manager for both Fairchild and Hart. “People said, ‘Hey, I’m looking for something different,’ and we were the only ones offering something different.”

But political science professors, professional politicians and pundits found a host of other explanations:

--The candidates’ names. Fairchild and Hart “have the same kind of names as astronauts and characters in ‘Dallas.’ They sound American,” Chicago Tribune columnist Mike Royko wrote. “ . . . It isn’t hard to imagine someone in the boonies saying: ‘Say, is Sangmeister some kind of Jewish name? Is Pucinski some sort of Rooskie?’ ”

--Inattentive media. In the three months prior to the election, the state’s two largest newspapers, the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times, mentioned the LaRouche candidates a total of six times, according to a computerized search of newspaper files. None of the articles were devoted specifically to the LaRouche candidates and none examined or explained their political philosophy.

--Democratic Party regulars who took the election for granted. “I thought Fairchild was black until I saw his picture in the paper after the election,” said Axelrod, who directed the Stevenson-Sangmeister primary campaign.

--Democratic precinct workers. Historically the muscle of the Illinois Democratic organization, they virtually ignored both the lieutenant governor and secretary of state races. “I worked a precinct and I didn’t mention either of those two races. I’m as guilty as anybody,” said Judith Erwin, a top aide to the president of the Illinois Senate.

Stevenson’s Choices

Fairchild’s victory apparently left Stevenson with just two choices under Illinois law--to run with a candidate whose political philosophy Stevenson says is “bent on violence and steeped in bigotry” or to withdraw from the race, perhaps to form a new political party.

“Very few people knew who they were voting for,” said Michael Preston, University of Illinois political scientist. “Sangmeister did not campaign, the LaRouche people did not campaign heavily, papers did not carry anything on it and television carried almost nothing. Nobody paid much attention.”

In fact, a check of campaign schedules showed that Sangmeister campaigned in only 20 of the state’s 102 counties. And the low-budget LaRouche campaign was “more by word of mouth,” campaign manager Pechenuk said.

“This is a classic example of the importance of reporting the backgrounds of candidates, even fringe party candidates,” said Kenneth D. Towers, Chicago Sun-Times managing editor. “I don’t think you’ll see it taken for granted that these are harmless fringe candidates in the future.”

“I think we have all learned a lesson,” said F. Richard Ciccone, managing editor of the Chicago Tribune. “We certainly need, in the future, not to totally ignore anyone who’s on the ballot. I don’t think what happened Tuesday would have been prevented by a few stories in the Tribune, but that doesn’t mean we were right.”

A random check of other large Illinois newspapers found few mentions of the LaRouche candidates and virtually no discussions of their political philosophy. The one exception was a political column in the Springfield Journal Register, in the state capital.

Television did no better. On Wednesday, WMAQ-TV’s Peter Nolan was introduced as the station’s man “who has been covering the Fairchild campaign.” That prompted Nolan to smilingly ad-lib, “I just started today.”

It’s not as though the LaRouche candidates didn’t try to find the camera’s eye. Pechenuk, regional campaign manager for LaRouche candidates, said that he begged newspapers and TV to cover his candidates and complained loudly when he was ignored.

“We issued tons of press releases and got absolutely no coverage. Zero. Blank. Nothing. I don’t know what else I could have done. Maybe I should have stood on my head on top of the Sears Tower,” he said.

He added that LaRouche disciples protested outside a Chicago TV station and the Chicago Tribune last week, complaining that their candidates were being overlooked in primary coverage.

To overcome the lack of media attention and their small numbers, LaRouche volunteers canvassed door to door in some areas, set up card tables in supermarkets and mailed literature to the more than 10,000 people who the LaRouche campaign says subscribe to the group’s magazine, New Solidarity.

LaRouche, 64, of Leesburg, Va., and candidates advanced by his National Democratic Policy Committee say they believe that economic ruin and war with the Soviet Union are imminent. They favor a return to the gold standard, a huge military buildup, mandatory testing for AIDS and quarantining of AIDS victims.

To Enter 1,000 Races

LaRouche’s group plans to run as many as 1,000 candidates for public office across the country this year. The Illinois primary victories are his organization’s first in a contested statewide election.

The Illinois Democratic Party was once such a model of ruthless political efficiency that in 1960 it was widely suspected of having stolen the White House for the national party, when Democrat John F. Kennedy edged out Republican Richard M. Nixon for the presidency with the help of Chicago Democrats, led by their legendary boss, Mayor Richard J. Daley.

But, on Tuesday, the failure of the party machine was spotlighted by the turnout--only about 23% of voters went to the polls, the lowest percentage in at least 15 years.

“It’s a dramatic, vivid, beautiful, textbook example of the effect of decentralized non-boss-led political parties and the direct primary,” said Austin Ranney, American Enterprise Institute specialist in political parties.

Chicago Democrats were unable to deliver for Sangmeister, who split the city’s vote 50-50 with Fairchild. Pucinski did better in Chicago but was able to get only 34% of the vote outside of the city.

Part of Sangmeister’s poor showing in Chicago can be attributed to Mayor Harold Washington, who distributed sample ballots that omitted Sangmeister’s and Pucinski’s names. Sangmeister was virtually unknown outside of his home town of Joliet.

Mayor Washington was not alone. Steven E. Brown, an aide to Illinois Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan, said that similar omissions were made on sample ballots throughout the state.

“We have seen a total diminution of state party discipline,” said Illinois Senate President Philip J. Rock, a former state Democratic party chairman.

There is a different view in the LaRouche camp.

“Why would anyone listen to or give any credence to the explantions of the same political experts who wouldn’t even acknowledge we were running?” asked La-Rouche aide Pechenuk.

Staff writer Robert Shogan in Washington and researcher Wendy Leopold in Chicago contributed to this report.