All the politicians whose names will appear on ballots Nov. 8 would do well to stop by Andrew C. Miller’s brick home in the middle-class Chatham neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side.
They should see the grand old house with its windows of cut- and leaded-glass and its rich woodwork. And they should see the metal grate with a fist-sized padlock that Miller draws over the old wood door to keep the criminals out.
So yes, Miller pays close attention to all those “tough-on-crime” sound bites, commercials and newspaper quotes. But he’s been waiting to hear much, much more.
Miller, a 70-year-old retired schoolteacher, wants to hear about education and social reforms. Because in his view, that, too, is talking about crime.
After he was held up last month in his own driveway by a polite, well-dressed man who pushed a .38-caliber revolver into his face, the police arrested a suspect who said he had a job-at a fast-food restaurant.
“If the schools could educate and help these youngsters so they could get better jobs, it would do a whole lot to alleviate the criminal situation,” he said. “It doesn’t have to do with capital punishment and longer prison sentences. It has to do with the breakdown of the family, the failures of the welfare system.”
With the election just over a week away, Miller is part of an electorate that is largely frustrated, disillusioned and disappointed. Interviews with voters across Chicago and the suburbs show that this election campaign has failed to pique great interest.
Sure, they care plenty about schools, crime, the economy and taxes, but they can’t always find a connection between those problems and government.
“They can’t do anything about it, anyway,” said one North Shore voter.
In Chicago, voter registration is flirting with all-time low levels for a general election, and officials expect statewide numbers to be low as well.
Many voters are so disenchanted, in fact, that they’ll likely take a pass rather than take a ballot.
“It really doesn’t have much relevance to my life,” said Mary Gallagher, a 60-year-old Joliet nurse. “Each candidate distorts the other candidate’s record, so I just tune it out, like so much noise. Politicians are all the same. They all do what’s politically expedient. They all lie.”
In a wholly unscientific, yet telling poll at an Orland Park shopping mall recently, only nine of 50 respondents said they were following the national, state and county elections and could name both legislative candidates in their districts.
The issues are there, of course. And, as usual, taxes are on all voters’ minds.
As she swept golden, coin-sized locust leaves from her sidewalk on the Northwest Side recently, Mary Welzian had a clear view of the neighborhood where she and her husband had their house built 26 years ago. Now, their old neighbors are moving out of her Edgebrook neighborhood, and young couples are moving in. And to her way of thinking, they are paying colossal sums for their homes.
“We have a 50-foot lot and we pay over $6,000 in taxes,” said Welzian, 72. “If we hadn’t prepared well for our retirement, we wouldn’t be able to stay here.”
But even when politicians say what she wants to hear about taxes, or any other issue, she finds herself doubting them.
“I think they are all talking through their hats,” she said with a smile.
For some, the lopsided polls in the election’s main event, the governor’s race, have sapped suspense and interest from the campaign. Polls have shown Republican Gov. Jim Edgar far ahead of Democratic challenger Dawn Clark Netsch.
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“I’m less engaged in the whole process because it’s a foregone conclusion what the outcome will be,” said Elizabeth Harper, 48, as she waited for her son outside a Northfield elementary school on a recent afternoon.
It’s no secret that Americans love to hate their politicians. But recent legal troubles by Chicago-area politicians have only further lowered the morale of the body politic.
Ed Erdelac, 51, a former policeman, has to shake his head at the number of politicians who end up indicted.
“Kids look up to the cops and the politicians, and if the leaders aren’t worth a damn, then we shouldn’t be surprised that the kids aren’t either,” Erdelac said.
Erdelac recently retired after 23 years with the Calumet City police. He feels that he had a ringside seat to many of the problems that plague America. But he also feels that the problems can’t be rectified at the ballot box.
“It all starts at home, and the family has just eroded,” he said.
The ongoing fights-between Chicago and Downstate interests, between Democrats and Republicans-also drain enthusiasm from those who want to see progress.
“I’d also like to see them work together more,” said William English, 40. “We’re losing ground we can’t afford.”
In the English household, education is of such paramount importance that the family recently moved from the South Side’s Auburn-Gresham neighborhood to Homewood, so their three boys-ages 10, 12 and 14-could attend the Homewood-Flossmoor schools.
“In the Chicago schools, you had good teachers who wanted to do the right thing, but politics just kept getting in the way,” said English, whose parents were both teachers.
For Terry Feingold, the most important issue is the economy.
Feingold, 45, spent two decades working in the financial industry, then lost his job to cost-cutting when the economy turned sour at the end of the 1980s. Now, he’s retooling, attending Oakton Community College in Des Plaines and majoring in physical therapy.
He has a wife and a 5-year-old child, works three part-time jobs and goes to school full time.
Although the economy is the most pressing issue to him, he believes that the forces that move it are beyond government, certainly beyond state government.
He’s up on the governor’s race and has made his choice there. But the other races haven’t sparked his interest.
“I’m so busy that I don’t have time to pay attention,” he said.
Nancy Disabato, a 38-year-old mother of three, has found that her political interests-environment and education-shifted with parenthood.
“When I was single and living on the North Side, I was interested in public transportation not public schools. But having children changed everything.”
Now, Disabato, a Flossmoor resident, is energized by her opposition to proposed incinerator projects in the south suburbs.
While she acknowledged voter cynicism, she still feels it’s her duty to be at the polls Nov. 8.
“If I don’t exercise my right to vote,” she said, “I don’t have a right to complain.”