The major candidates in Tuesday’s Illinois election appealed to the voters’ sense of history during a final, frenzied weekend day of campaigning Sunday.
Republicans brandished brooms to encourage a GOP sweep, while Democrats focused on the opportunity to elect the state’s first woman governor.
“With your help, we’re going to sweep the statewide offices in Illinois,” Gov. Jim Edgar told GOP supporters at a rally in River Grove. Edgar has a commanding lead in the polls and expects to win in a landslide.
Meantime, Edgar’s Democratic opponent, state Comptroller Dawn Clark Netsch, spent 12 hours traveling from Chicago precincts to Downstate airports in a last-ditch effort to raise doubts about the governor and GOP administrations dating to 1976.
“Eighteen years of Republicans is enough. We need a change. We can make history in this election. Help us make history,” Netsch urged Democrats in Moline with lieutenant governor running mate, state Sen. Penny Severns (D-Decatur), standing alongside.
Netsch also took a dig at controversial Illinois Senate President James “Pate” Philip (R-Wood Dale). “On some days in Springfield, it’s hard to tell who is in charge,” Netsch said. “Some days, Jim Edgar is the head, and some days, Pate Philip is the head. We don’t need a two-headed governor. We need a she-headed governor.”
Netsch contended again that Edgar would raise taxes in a second term and hasn’t been truthful with voters, as she has been in laying out her plan to raise the state income tax for school funding along with property- and select income-tax relief. Netsch also accused the governor of improper use of state aircraft to help his campaign.
Edgar dismissed both charges.
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Voters will elect state constitutional officeholders, legislators, members of Congress and county officials. Sunday was a late chance to sway undecided voters or change some minds.
While Edgar stumped in the Chicago area, the rest of the GOP ticket made a statewide fly-around and kept to the theme of a sweep.
“We’re the best the Republican ticket has had in years,” said state Sen. Judy Baar Topinka (R-Riverside), the treasurer candidate. “If we don’t win on Tuesday, it ain’t ever going to happen.”
One party has not swept every statewide office since the Democrats did it 30 years ago. Republicans have not had a sweep since 1956.
DuPage County State’s Atty. James Ryan, the Republican candidate for attorney general and a former boxer, promised a knockout of Democratic nominee Albert Hofeld.
“Al Hofeld’s going to learn that all the money in the world can’t change the truth,” Ryan told a Rockford audience. “The people of Illinois want a prosecutor in the attorney general’s office, not a millionaire personal-injury lawyer from Chicago.”
Topinka thumped the anti-Chicago drum, too, warning that Democratic treasurer candidate Nancy Drew Sheehan “is going to try to do it the way they always do it in Chicago-the Machine vote.”
And Republican Secretary of State George Ryan resigned himself to a day of accusations from Democratic challenger Patrick Quinn, who held one of his trademark Sunday morning news conferences at the Bismarck Hotel to lambaste the incumbent.
Quinn complained that Ryan has received more than $500,000 in campaign contributions from auto-repair businesses regulated by his office. Ryan replied that Quinn should have addressed his concerns with authorities rather than reporters.
When asked about a proposed State Inspector Misdemeanor Act that Quinn proposed to address the alleged problem, Ryan said: “Pat Quinn couldn’t pass a law if his life depended on it.”
Ryan accused Quinn’s campaign of having used “every dirty trick in the book.” But he added, “Tuesday night, the trick is going to be on him.”
Both Ryans and Edgar were leading their Democratic foes in last week’s final Tribune poll. Topinka hopes to run sufficiently well to allow GOP coattails to help carry her to victory along with GOP comptroller candidate Loleta Didrickson, who is opposed by state Sen. Earlean Collins (D-Chicago).
“Don’t let this opportunity slip through our hands,” Edgar, who will make a fly-around finale Monday, urged the River Grove crowd in one of his most animated appearances of the fall. “Let’s keep it up. Forty-eight hours more and we’ll have a big victory.”
Having solidified a commanding lead in the polls over a month ago, Edgar has been content to run out the clock against Netsch, focusing his attention on helping Republicans in the Illinois House overcome a 67-51 Democratic majority.
At a joint appearance with Edgar, Kathleen Parker, the Republican challenger to state Sen. Grace Mary Stern (D-Highland Park), said: “The thing we need to worry about is that people don’t get complacent and think that (Edgar) is certainly going to win, so they don’t need to get out and vote.”
Campaigning with his wife and two adult children, Edgar opened the day by attending services at two Chicago African-American churches. He also defended himself against Netsch’s charge that he used state airplanes and helicopters for political appearances without reimbursement.
A published report in a Decatur newspaper put Edgar’s use of state aircraft for the first three weeks of October at more than double the average for the periods in his three previous years. The trips may have cost taxpayers as much as $45,000, according to the story.
Netsch said: “We’re flying on a chartered airline. During my entire campaign, that’s what we’ve flown. . . . I think it’s another example of the Edgar administration’s arrogance, and I think it makes taxpayers like me angry.”
Edgar responded that his campaign has “been following the rules” by reimbursing the state for trips that are purely political. He added: “I think she’s frustrated because maybe she doesn’t have the power of the incumbency. In the closing days, she’s throwing out all kinds of statements and charges.”
Democrats up and down the ticket, meanwhile, criss-crossed Cook County in an effort to fire up ward and township precinct workers.
“We need a governor who understands that Chicago is part of the state of Illinois. He doesn’t understand the importance of Chicago. He hasn’t done one thing that a governor should be doing for the city,” Netsch told audiences everywhere.
Netsch and Severns were greeted enthusiastically by many voters, several of whom said they don’t believe polls showing the Democrats far behind Edgar and Lt. Gov. Bob Kustra.