Former Gov. James Thompson made some candid observations about the state of Illinois politics at a Civic Federation luncheon this summer.

In fact, he has a number of concerns.

• He laments the decline of "the real emotional contributor" to campaigns: people who give $15 because they believe deeply in a candidate. And he thinks candidates today do not press the flesh enough with voters.

• He believes party platforms have become trivialized, almost meaningless. "Parties used to stand for something" and recruited candidates to carry out the party mission, he said. But when patronage was outlawed, parties declined.

• He defines television as an "attack medium" that is emotional, not analytical. The strongest advice given to candidates today is to define your opponents in your terms before they define themselves. That's exactly what we're seeing.

But he said "the real question" is whether American politics have become "largely irrelevant" in a global economy. He cited the case of two large corporations that publicly announced an illegal merger, then went to Washington to get the law changed.

Thompson gave everyone interested in seeing a revival of public interest in politics food for thought, as well as a good history lesson. Although politics today seem "raw, cruel and personal," they have always been that way; today's campaigns seem like "beanbags and softballs" compared to some of the political rhetoric of the 19th century.

We often hear about the declining numbers of voters, but we don't often see the numbers themselves. So I looked them up, and was startled by the information from the State Board of Elections.

In 1960, when Illinois still had presidential and gubernatorial elections in the same year, the voter turnout was a whopping 88 percent in the general election. The last time Illinois elected a governor, in 1994, only 53 percent of the voters turned out. The last time we elected a president, in 1996, only 66 percent of Illinoisans cast a ballot. As Professor Kent Redfield says so often on our campus, we have more campaign dollars chasing fewer and fewer voters.

I hope you appreciate our political coverage of this fall's important campaigns. Seeing the piece on Glenn Poshard and George Ryan in this issue reminds me that the writer, Jennifer Davis, is leaving Illinois Issues to work for the Peoria Journal Star. Also with this issue, our projects editor, Donald Sevener, bids us farewell for an opportunity with the Illinois Board of Higher Education. Both of these professionals deserve an A for their service to the magazine, and I wish them well. 

Illinois Issues September 1998 | 3