Former State Comptroller Michael Bakalis pulled the plug on his drive for the Democratic nomination for governor Wednesday, dramatically altering the dynamic of a campaign in which frontrunner Roland Burris had been pitted against three white candidates.
Burris, the first African-American to hold statewide office, was counting on Bakalis’ presence on the March 19 ballot to help carve up the white vote. That strategy would have allowed Burris to maximize his strong base of support among African-American voters.
Now that the primary nomination is a three-way contest, the prospects have increased that voters will establish a clear alternative to Burris among his remaining two opponents, former Chicago Public Schools chief Paul Vallas and U.S. Rep. Rod Blagojevich of Chicago.
Bakalis, who also served as the state’s last elected superintendent of public instruction in the 1970s, lagged far behind his rivals in public opinion polls. His exit creates a new crop of uncommitted voters unlikely to switch their allegiance to Burris, who has already seen some erosion in his early lead over Vallas and Blagojevich.
Vallas aides said they expected him to benefit most from Bakalis’ departure because both men share education backgrounds and a Greek heritage.
“Certainly, one less candidate in the race is a better situation,” Vallas said. “I feel better today than I did yesterday, but I still have a big campaign ahead of me.”
But Blagojevich wasn’t conceding any Bakalis votes to Vallas. The congressman said Bakalis’ message of creating opportunity was an echo of his own campaign theme.
“It opens up another universe of voters for us to compete for, and we’re in as strong a position as any to compete for those voters,” Blagojevich said. “It doesn’t change anything in my campaign.”
Bakalis doesn’t take sides
A spokesman for Burris said the frontrunner had spoken to Bakalis and appealed for his support. But Bakalis said he wouldn’t endorse anyone in the primary.
Nevertheless, William Davis, the Burris spokesman, said Bakalis and Burris were the only Democratic contenders to have won statewide elections. That, reasoned Davis, means that Bakalis backers are more likely to “gravitate to our campaign than any other.”
But Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan predicted Vallas would benefit most from Bakalis’ departure.
“I think it helps Paul Vallas,” said Madigan, who also is state Democratic chairman. “Any votes that Bakalis might have gotten, certainly some of them would have come from the Greek community.”
Burris was elected to three terms as state comptroller in the 1980s and then one term as Illinois’ attorney general. But he hasn’t won an election since 1990, losing Democratic primary bids for governor in 1994 and 1998 as well as a 1995 race for Chicago mayor.
In the two failed races for governor, Burris enjoyed strong backing from the African-American community. But a recent Tribune/WGN-TV poll showed many black voters preferring Vallas because of his efforts to reform city schools.
The poll showed Bakalis with the support of only 5 percent of likely Democratic voters. But even a small number of votes are important in an ever-tightening race in which the winner needs only a plurality of ballots cast to become the party’s nominee.
Burris’ lead over Vallas dropped from 12 percentage points in a Tribune poll last fall to 8 percentage points in the new survey, appearing to mirror a pattern that dogged Burris in his previous tries for governor. He started out strong in early polls, only to fade in the stretch.
Bakalis, 62, is a professor at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University and is president and chief executive officer of American Quality Schools Corp., which runs three charter schools in Chicago.
After serving as the state schools chief and then comptroller, Bakalis dropped out of politics after losing a 1978 general election to then-Republican incumbent Gov. James R. Thompson.
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In his attempt to get back in the game after a 24-year absence, Bakalis sought to sell himself to a new generation of voters as a political outsider who still had experience. Not only did the strategy fall flat, but Bakalis found it hard to drum up a groundswell among his political supporters from the ’70s because many had either passed away or passed him by.
Bakalis said he decided late Tuesday night to withdraw from the race, only hours after he debated the other Democratic contenders before the Tribune Editorial Board and pitched himself as “someone who’s got experience in the public, the private and not-for-profit sector and who has a vision for Illinois.”
In an interview, he noted that the costs of campaigns have “escalated dramatically” as had the influence of special-interest donors since his last campaign.
“I was unable to raise the money to allow me to be competitive and to do the things I needed to do in the next seven weeks, to buy the radio and the TV to get my message out,” Bakalis said. “When people don’t see you on TV or hear your ads on the radio, they don’t think you exist.”
His campaign disclosure report, filed Wednesday with the State Board of Elections, showed he began the year with only $93,000 in cash on hand. But he also had lent his campaign more than $80,000 and donated another $6,400.
By contrast, Blagojevich has said he started the year with more than $4 million.
School funding issue
Before dropping out, Bakalis chided his opponents for failing to fully come to grips with the problem of inequitable funding of the state’s local public schools. He proposed a new state tax on services to lessen the school-funding burden on property taxpayers.
But some of Bakalis’ ideas–and his inability to promote them on a larger scale–proved to be his downfall.
Bakalis suggested the solution to chronic congestion on Illinois tollways was to lift the gates during rush hours and let motorists pass for free. The idea was criticized by tollway officials who said it would cost them badly needed revenue and make congestion worse.
The Tribune poll found voters overwhelmingly sided with the tollway bureaucrats over Bakalis–a sure sign his candidacy was in trouble.