Donkey
Tails
By Maury Goodman
December 2006
For the "Warrenville
Today"
Newspaper
by Maury Goodman
How DuPage Democrats did well
And the results statewide and
nationally made us “feel good”. Let’s
look how the Democratic Party of DuPage County did well in this last
election:
- The Tammy Duckworth campaign for
Congress in District 6 certainly energized DuPage Democrats. It was a hard fought campaign with a great
candidate who came close. She received 48%
of the vote in DuPage County
and 49% of the vote district wide.
- Three statewide Democratic candidates,
Lisa Madigan, Dan Hynes and Jesse White carried DuPage
County for their
campaigns.
- Democrats Lisa Madigan and Dan Hynes
each got more votes (173,353 & 146,267) than the top Republican
statewide vote getter, Judy Topinka (132,667) despite the presence of
Dupage Republican Joe Birkett on her ticket.
- Two Democratic State Senate Candidates
with small portions in DuPage County won their seats and carried their
DuPage Sections – Don Harmon from Oak Park in District 39 (1073-678 in
DuPage) and Linda Holmes from Aurora in District 42 (605-456 in DuPage)
- Joe Vosicky from Elmhurst
got 49% of the vote in State Representative District 46, the best
showing by a Democratic candidate there since we have had single member
districts, and close enough to request a recount.
- Our county board candidates did better
across the board. Compare our 2006 vote
percentages of 44%, 44%, 45%, 46%, 45% and 41% with 2004’s 42%, 38%,
41%, 35%, 35% and 39%.
- The Democratic “sweep” statewide,
combined with gains in the U.S. House and Senate and gains in the
Illinois Senate
How DuPage Democrats did
poorly
But for Democrats who care about
good government, the news is not all good.
There are some very good reasons to be disappointed
- Despite the fact that it was a very
Democratic year in a very Democratic state, there is not a single
DuPage Democrat who was elected to anything!
- The reddest of red states, like North
Dakota, Nebraska
and North Carolina have
elected Democrats. DuPage
County is no more
Republican than they are. We should be
able to do better.
- For the first time in my 30 years here
(first time ever?) there were NO Democratic county-wide candidates. NONE. And this is
not a county that is well-run; in fact the current fiscal state of the
county is a disaster.
- One candidate for county board did not
get proper help on his candidacy paperwork. He
decided to run as a write-in. Despite
nominal support from the county Democratic leaders, the message of his
campaign never got to the precinct committeemen. His
website was useless, and despite several requests, he never gave clear
instructions on how to cast a write-in. There
were no more write-in votes in that district than for other unopposed
candidates without a write-in campaign. In
District 6, where there was a “write-in” candidate, 474 write-in votes
were counted. In District 5, with no such
write-in candidate, 496 write-in votes were cast.
- The current township organizations
remain more focused on having speakers at meetings and doing the
election commission’s work on recruiting judges than on finding and
supporting good candidates. Those are good
things to worry about between elections, but the priorities should
change the few months before the campaigns.
- There are numerous volunteers who
steadily contact the party through our website. That
enthusiasm is not effectively harnessed.
- I’ve heard the claim that DuPage
Democrats will “build” on the success of Tammy Duckworth.
I don’t see it happening. In
1986, Mary Lou Kearns likewise got 49% of the vote in Congressional
District 14. Many of us worked hard for
her. But we were unable to use her
near-win to build an effective party.
How we can do better
You can’t win elections without
candidates. I feel strongly that the
Democratic Party of DuPage County needs to do a much better job of
candidate
recruitment. But we also need to make
better use of resources – our funds and our volunteers.
I’ll cover my ideas for how this can be
acheived in a future column.
Will Denny Hastert Resign?
The House Ethics committee
report lays the blame for the Foley affair squarely on the Republican
leadership, i.e. Denny Hastert. If
Hastert resigns before the new congress is sworn in, he will get to
retire with
a much larger pension, than if he fills out his term.
Chicago Democrat Bobby Steele has been
criticized for doing something similar.
We’ll see whether or not Republican Hastert follows.
If he does resign, there would
be a special election. Democratic
candidate John Laesch would run again, but it is also clear that Aurora
State
Representative Linda Chapa Lavia will run as well.
Edwards in DuPage
County
In early December, Democratic
vice-presidential candidate from
2004 John Edwards was in Naperville
signing copies of his new book, “Home Stories, Share the Blueprints of
your
life”. Some
pictures are posted at http://www.dupagedemocrats.org/
Candidate web pages after the elections
During an election, candidate web pages provide
information
about each candidates qualifications and positions.
After the election, some acknowledgement that
the election is over, and thanking the voters seems appropriate to me. A post-election survey of 9 Democratic
candidates for congress/statewide office showed 4 with Thank-yous and 5
in
their pre-election state. The 8 DuPage
state assembly candidates were 3 Thank-you, 5 out-of-date.
The 8 candidates for DuPage office were 2 and
6.
Upcoming Events
Many events of interest to Warrenville and DuPage
County
Democrats can be found at http://www.dupagedemocrats.org/dupagenews.html Send information about events that aren’t
listed to webmaster@dupagedemocrats.org
Feedback
It is welcomed and appreciated
maurygoodman@dupagedemocrats.org