With more and more indications that the Feb. 24 mayoral primary will be decided by a narrow margin, the leading Democratic candidates this weekend concentrated on some key swing-vote areas.
And in a campaign marked by charges and countercharges, a new twist was added Saturday with a controversial remark by an Illinois judge campaigning for Mayor Harold Washington.
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”Any man south of Madison Street who casts a vote in the Feb. 24 election who doesn`t cast a vote for Harold Washington ought to be hung,”
Illinois Appellate Court Judge R. Eugene Pincham said at Operation PUSH headquaters.
Asked about the comments later, Pincham said that what he meant was that
”every black Chicagoan ought to vote in the election. Anybody who doesn`t vote ought to be hung.”
The comment is bound to be an issue in a race that appears to be growing increasingly tighter as Washington and former Mayor Jane Byrne vie for votes. Meanwhile, the mayor sought to shore up his support in the Hispanic and lakefront communities, which carried for him in 1983 but this time around are presenting problems.
And Byrne added to her pledge of reviving ChicagoFest by also promising to bring back several other festivals.
”Don`t miss `em too long,” Byrne told supporters at the opening of her 12th Ward campaign headquarters, ”because they`re gonna be back next summer.”
Byrne campaigned on the Southwest Side with her familiar message of being the one to ”get the spirit back” in Chicago and restore the city`s image to a metropolitan center that works.
At a breakfast in the VFW Rhine Post 2729, at 5838 S. Archer Ave., Byrne told about 70 people that city services, especially in the police and fire departments, had suffered mightily under the Washington administration.
”Is that the city that works? It`s the city that works backwards,” she said.
In a reference to ChicagoFest, which she popularized, but began under the administration of former Mayor Michael Bilandic, Byrne said, ”One million people could walk along the lakefront with their chins up with their friends and not be afraid. . . . State Street was not shriveling and dark, with no people along the streets. Chicago was moving.”
Washington, comparing his term in office with Byrne`s, said his administration offered more advancement for women and more police protection and was one in which ”institutional corruption is gone, gone, gone.”
Byrne and Washington had been expected to attend a Democratic endorsement in the lakefront 43d Ward, but only the mayor attended.
Byrne`s aides said Washington was running several minutes late, causing a conflict in Byrne`s schedule and forcing her to cancel.
The lakefront was a swing vote for Washington, but he lost the 43d Ward to Byrne in the 1983 primary and was edged out by Republican Bernard Epton by a vote of 19,620 to 11,008 in the general election.
Though several of those at the 43d Ward session wore Washington buttons, the organization decided not to endorse a candidate.
Washington received 32 votes to Byrne`s 10. But 38 members voted for no endorsement.
On the South Side, Pincham`s thunderously applauded speech at Operation PUSH, 930 E. 50th St., at times took on tones of a civil rights rally with the judge likening Washington and ”the movement” to slain leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
”They were not indebted to the political structure,” Pincham said. And like King, Washington faced major struggles.
”We`re not talking about an election; we`re talking about a crusade,”
he said. ”There are still some who would betray us. Some with the slave mentality. Some who think because you go into the secrecy of a voting booth, you can vote for whomever you want: We know who you are.
”We`re going to be counting the votes; we want 100 percent,” Pincham added.
Contacted later, Pincham said, ”I was trying to say we must be sensitive to what happened” in the 1741 New York slave rebellion, where blacks were burned and hanged for trying to vote.
Also on Saturday, Washington had a privately scheduled meeting with members of the Spanish-language media at the Casa Aztlan community cultural center in the Pilsen neighborhood.
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Washington split the Hispanic vote with Byrne and Cook County State`s Atty. Richard Daley in the 1983 primary, but he picked up a majority of the vote in that year`s election against Epton.
Byrne, however, never stopped campaigning in the Hispanic communities. For the last four years, she has attended parades, parties and major dinners. That paid off for her. The Byrne and Washington camps, as well as leaders of the Hispanic community, acknowledge an almost even split.
”I`m the first mayor who`s done his job for the Hispanic community,”
Washington told the small gathering.
He reminded them of his executive order to prevent immigration authorities from using city records and property to harass Hispanics and that he fought for a ward remap, which gave them four aldermen instead of one.
Meanwhile, Republican mayoral candidate Donald Haider and Cook County Assessor Thomas Hynes, running for mayor on the Chicago First Party ticket in April, crossed paths Saturday during campaign appearances at the Vietnamese Community Center, 4750 N. Sheridan Rd., where more than 1,000 Vietnamese celebrated their new year.
Haider and Hynes reacted cautiously to passage of controversial ethics ordinances by a Chicago City Council committee Friday. They said they would propose their own ethics ordinances in the near future, but they declined to release details of their proposals.