In Illinois, Rank-and-File Democrats Defend Clinton

On the eve of the state Democratic Convention here, six women from Southern Illinois--with more than half a century of knocking on doors, pasting up posters and passing out campaign buttons among them--sipped drinks in a Holiday Inn lounge and steadfastly defended President Clinton in the wake of his confession to an affair with Monica S. Lewinsky.

Thursday morning, the head of the Democratic National Committee, the state’s Democratic nominee for governor and other party leaders did what the six more humbly engaged party stalwarts would not. They publicly, if gently, chastised the president.

“People are extremely disappointed in him,” said Illinois Rep. Glenn Poshard, who is locked in a close race for governor.

“This is a serious issue,” intoned Colorado Gov. Roy Romer, chairman of the DNC.

That’s just not how Sam Fuller, one of the women in the lounge, or most of the other conventioneers, saw it.

“The people I’m talking to say as long as the country keeps moving ahead, I don’t care if he’s [sleeping with] the whole White House,” said Fuller, 29, of Charleston, who works as a fund-raiser for a candidate for state representative.

As some national party leaders continued to distance themselves from Clinton on Thursday, the rank-and-file Democrat, in Illinois at least, seemed alternately dumbfounded and disgusted that the whole mess hadn’t been swept up since the president’s televised speech Monday.

“He’s the president of the United States,” said 17-year-old campaign worker Bobby Reidelberger of Highland. “If you’re a real American, you’ll drop this.”

The picture of division, though not necessarily dissension, between the Democratic Party elite and the party masses played out at a convention that drew 1,600 to a Holiday Inn undergoing renovations. The breakfast session was held in a swimming pool-adjacent convention room that smelled of chlorine, and energetic get-out-the-voters then went to work the party’s booth at the Illinois State Fair.

The focus of the convention, naturally, was intended to be on Illinois politics. Democrats here are thrilled with the possibility of making Poshard, who is running against Republican Secretary of State George Ryan, the state’s first Democratic governor in 22 years. But they are concerned that his conservative views on abortion rights, gay rights and other traditionally Democratic issues may cost him in the voting booth.

The delegates gave U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun a rousing ovation, but they are nervous because the Republican National Committee has placed her seat near the top of its wish list.

But three days after Clinton testified before a federal grand jury to having had a sexual relationship with former White House intern Lewinsky, then went on television to tell the world he had been lying for seven months about the nature of that liaison, the Clinton-Lewinsky matter couldn’t help but become a central issue.

“I say it straight: This is a problem,” Romer told the audience at the packed morning meeting. Then, in a crescendoing conventioneer’s voice, he added, “Is this going to be an issue at the ballot box this fall? No!”

Many Democrats here, who pounded the pavement and worked the phones during both of Clinton’s presidential campaigns, doubt that his problems will directly affect local candidates. But some leaders fear that with the seamy drama taking place in a nonpresidential election year--when convincing voters to go to the polls can be the most difficult part of the campaign--it will serve mainly to keep would-be Democrats home on election day.

“I think that happened when President Nixon had his problems--a lot of Republicans stayed away,” Poshard said in an interview.

“In a low-turnout race, it’s probably going to cost us a little bit,” Alton Miller, campaign manager for attorney general candidate Miriam Santos, said. Additionally, “this could really bring out anger in Republicans and get them to go to the polls.”

To many at the gathering, though, such punditry was little more than an unnecessary downer. “We have the best ticket in the history of Illinois!” State Democratic Chairman Michael J. Madigan shouted to great cheers.

This ticket is so strong, Illinois AFL-CIO President Don Johnson said, that the party could be merely “as smart as geese” and still sweep the election.

Even the state fair organizers had dubbed this “Democrat Day.”

The night before, Fuller, the fund-raiser for the would-be state representative, said she didn’t resent some party leaders putting some political miles between themselves and the president. “They’re distancing themselves because they need to.” In rural Illinois, “we’re already so distanced from things we don’t have anything to back away from.”