By CAROLYN BOIARSKLY is a free-lance writer, residing in Peoria where she is the former director of public affairs for Lakeview Center for the Arts and Sciences. Ms. Boiarsky was a statehouse correspondent for United Press International in Charleston, W. Va., and the coordinator of the Education Task Force for the 1970 White House Conference on Youth.
The county has a staunch Republican electorate with the dual leadership of a weak party organization and a campaign 'war chest controlled by downtown power brokers. But after Watergate, 10 Democrats were elected to the County Board and 2 of the 3 House seats were won by Democrats. Still very Republican and conservative, Peoria has a young mayor gathering state and federal dollars to redevelop the city's downtown
THEY HAVEN'T asked how President Ford is "playing in Peoria" yet, but if they do, the answer will be "very well" — after all, Ford is a Peorian at heart, isn't he? All through Watergate Peoria served as the nation's pulse for testing Nixon's popularity, and, almost to the very end, the diagnosis was steady and healthy. Peoria's Congressman Robert Michel (R.) was one of the very last to accept the former President's guilt, but his loyalty never provoked the voters. In 1974, when everyone else in politics who was even faintly connected with the Nixon cabal was being voted out of office, Michel's popularity remained high. Presently, he is minority whip, the second most important man in the House of Representatives. He is also a staunch supporter of President Gerald Ford.
The support of Peoria County voters for Nixon, despite his apparent guilt, and Michel's continued popularity among his constituency are no surprise to anyone familiar with Peoria County politics. It is a bastion of downstate conservatism. Those in attendance at the recent Peoria County Republican Central Committee convention could easily pass for their counterparts in the 1950's. Men with short cropped, steel gray hair, sat in jackets with thin lapels and narrow ties and voted on a new county chairman.
Even the Democratic party, synonymous with the liberal vote on the national level, is conservative in Peoria. While Democratic Committee Chairman Larry Johnson describes the party as ranging from "George to George" (McGovern to Wallace), the side leaning toward Wallace is top heavy. Though the state has two relatively liberal U.S. senators, both of whom the county supported, Peoria County voters are not really satisfied with either of them. They were much happier when Everett Dirksen from the city of Pekin, directly across the river from Peoria, represented Illinois.
Statewide effect
In the March primary Peoria voters
ran true to form. The Republicans came
out heavily for Ford for president and,
James Thompson for governor, while
the Democrats backed Jimmy Carter
and Dan Walker. It doesn't take a,
fortune teller's ball to predict that if
Ford is nominated he will easily win the
general election in the county.
Thompson will also do well. There is little
chance, however, that Peoria's vote will
have any appreciable effect on the
outcome of the state election, despite the
fact that it is the ninth largest county in
the state with a population over 200,000.
Since Cook County's population is
approximately equal to the entire
population of downstate Illinois, the
downstate vote has comparatively little
influence on the outcome of the state
vote except in exceptional circumstances.
This was the case in the 1968
Republican landslide when the state
elected Republican Richard Ogilvie as
governor, and in the 1972 primary when
the downstate voters nominated Walker,
a Democratic gubernatorial
candidate not endorsed by Chicago Mayor
Richard J. Daley. However, even in
these two elections, Peoria failedto take
advantage of these golden opportunities
and voted for the losing candidate each
time. The county supported Samuel
Shapiro against Ogilvie in 1968 and then
turned around and supported Ogilvie
against Walker in 1972.
Peoria County has been predominantly Republican since the turn of the century; with the exception of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson the county has consistently supported Republican presidential candidates, and has sent an almost unbroken line of
10/ August 1976/ Illinois Issues
Despite this strong Republican tradition, Peoria County voters have split their ticket and voted Democratic in selected instances. In 1960 and again in 1974, the county supported the Democratic candidates for U. S. Senate, voting for Paul Douglas and Adiai Stevenson III, respectively. The county also supported the Democratic gubernatorial candidates Otto Kerner in 1960 and 1964, and Shapiro in 1968. And since 1960 the county has supported the statewide Democratic ticket for lieutenant governor, secretary of state, auditor and attorney general in almost every case. This support for the Daley Democratic ticket is especially surprising considering traditional down- state suspicion of the upstate Chicago vote, a suspicion which dates as far back as the 1850's.
Why would a staunch Republican electorate vote a split ticket? Part of the answer lies in the desire of an electorate to be on the side of a perceived winner, and the Daley-Democratic ticket is usually the winning ticket. But part of the answer also lies in the fact that while Republicanism is generally strong, the party organization is weak. The basic structure of Peoria County's political system differs markedly from the traditional form of politics practiced in Cook County.
Each party has a central committee, composed of the county's precinct committeemen, which serves legally as the controlling arm of the party. Each comittee elects a chairman and executive committee who are responsible for organizing fund raising events and developing campaign strategies. But, the committees have no real control over the selection of candidates. They do not draw up a slate nor do they make any funds available to the candidates during the primary election. Anyone interested in running for office can enter the primary on either the Republican or Democratic ticket, and the parties will distribute a candidate's literature impartially. It is only after the voters have selected a candidate that the party becomes involved, providing funds and support for the general election.
On the surface this process appears to be much more democratic than the machine-type politics practiced upstate. In reality, however, it may actually be less democratic. Candidates searching for funds to finance a primary campaign must go to other sources, thus opening the door to lobby groups and private interests. In Peoria County these sources are centered in the "downtown business establishment," which is composed of the presidents of a small number of banks and insurance companies. This group of power brokers selects those candidates it wishes to finance. Democrats as well as Republicans.
Until 1973 this method of funding was conducted surreptitiously. But in 1973 the Peoria Journal Star printed a story on a "war chest" from which candidates were being financed. The newspaper quoted one of the individuals who control the "war chest," the president of a large savings and loan association and the former president of the Peoria Association of Commerce as saying, "We are simply making contributions to people we feel can serve the citizens of Peoria well." He preceded to explain that the funds were being solicited from individuals, not corporations, and that though most of the fund raisers were Republicans, the funds were being made available on a nonpartisan basis.
After the 1974 elections, the "war chest" went underground again. But anonymous sources still claim that almost every successful Republican candidate and some Democratic candidates continue to make a pilgrimage to the office of the president of the largest bank in Peoria to request support and financial assistance. By controlling the financing of candidates, especially during the primary, the power brokers effectively undercut the power of the Republican County Central Committee and create a dual leadership in which the committee needs the power brokers to finance its candidates and the brokers need the committee to get their candidates elected. This dual leadership, in which one segment, the power brokers, operates outside the party structure, substantially weakens the county party system, and leads the electorate to vote for individuals rather than the party.
A second reason for the party's weakness is the complacency which stems from being in power so long. The Democrats seldom offer any significant opposition, usually offering no more than a token candidate for most positions. Even in the case of the minority party seat in the state House of Representatives, the Democrats generally nominate a candidate whose views are in accord with the conservative Republican electorate.
Until 1974 a weak Republican party organization was irrelevant in Peoria County. The Republicans continued to maintain almost total control of the county with comparatively little effort. But after Watergate, Peoria County, like so many other predominantly Republican areas, was profoundly shaken to discover the morning after the election that the Democrats had won two of the three seats in the Illinois House for the first time in a decade and only the second time in three quarters of a century. It also learned that 10 Democrats had secured seats on the County Board where only one had sat previously and that one had only been elected in the past two years.
At about the same time that Republicans were discovering the effects of Watergate, the city of Peoria's downtown business establishment was finding itself in trouble. Despite a series of court actions by the owner of a competing suburban shopping center and a variety of other stopgap measures, construction of a suburban mall, owned by outside interests, was begun. Peoria's downtown section was in danger of
August 1976 /Illinois Issues / 11
Peoria's GOP has younger leadership now, but the conservative influences exist from downtown businessmen, Caterpillar Tractor Co., and the rural county areas
obsolescence. Until the new mall was begun, Peoria had remained aloof from the federal dollar — and the federal strings attached to it. A new courthouse and library in the downtown section were financed almost entirely by local funds, and Caterpillar Tractor Co., indicating its faith in Peoria, constructed its new international head- quarters there also. But with the completion of the new mall in 1973, retail stores began evacuating the downtown area, and business leaders finally admitted the necessity of procuring state and federal funds for the preservation of the downtown area. But the incumbent mayor proved incapable of obtaining the funds. Luckily, a mayoralty election was imminent.
Republican young blood
This was the year that a young
businessman, Richard Carver, 35,
decided to run for mayor. Though the
mayoralty race is supposed to be
nonpartisan. Carver's Republican
preference was well known. Election of the
young mayor not only meant hope for
the downtown business sector, but an
infusion of young blood into the lead-
ership of the Republican party. Along
with Carver, another young Peorian,
Prescott Bloom, 31, was elected to the
state Senate after primary victory over
the late Hudson Sours, 64, who had held
the office since 1960. During the recent
Republican Central Committee con-
vention, the younger politicians gained
full control of the party with the election
of a young woman, Mary Alice
Erickson, 40, to the county chairmanship in a
closely contested race against Sours.
Whether or not the change in the party's leadership foreshadows a progressive trend is still unknown. The factors which originally caused the party's conservatism — the downtown business establishment, Caterpillar
Tractor Co., and the rural areas continue to influence the party's economic and social policies. The traditionally Republican rural areas, which today compose less than 20 per cent of the population, are in philosophical agreement with the conservative interests of the business community of Peoria. The third conservative influence is Caterpillar Tractor Co., the largest private employer in the state, employing 51,000 workers and affecting another quarter of a million persons throughout Illinois. The corpora lion's influence in the Peoria area, where 33,000 men and women are employed, is a subtle one. As one member of the county board explains, "Caterpillar pays a large amount of taxes to the county; why would we vote to antagonize it?" The employees of the multinational firm are also encouraged to participate in community organizations. One of the three state representatives. Fred Tuerk. and five of the county board members are employed by Caterpillar.
Grass roots politics
While the parly's philosophy will
probably remain unchanged, the
internal structure of the party will
probably be altered. The new leadership
plans to emphasize a return to
grass-roots politics in an effort to strengthen
the party. Erickson speaks, of old
fashioned precinct work to get out the
vote and intends to urge straight ticket
voting.
Similar action is also being taken by the Democratic party, stimulated by its show of force in the 1974 election; in that year more Democratic than Republican straight tickets were cast. The Democrats, who now have a majority in the state legislature and significant representation on the county board, are convinced that there is a substantial Democratic electorate in the county. For the first time they have begun to develop strategies and nominate candidates to fight the opposition. It appears, however, that as the impact of Water- gate lessens they will probably lose some of the gains they made in 1974.
The recent Democratic gubernatorial election created a schism in the party and it is unlikely it will{ recover soon. There is even talk of a number of party members working for Thompson. It is also questionable whether the party will be able to retain its two representatives in the state legislature. Long accustomed to being members of a minority party: recognizing the diminishing effects of Watergate. the two Dei" cratic candidates are campaigning. individuals rather than a team each asking voters to give him all three votes
The Republicans' plans,too seem doomed. The Democratic candidates lor statewide office are strong, and it is extremely likely that. despite the party's emphasis on straight, ticketing, Re. publican voters will split their ballots to support the Democratic candidates for secretary of state, auditor and attorney general. Fred set ions are that the party will present a united front for President Ford and James Thompson. By taking advantage of the spilt in the Democratic ranks. Peoria County should provide a healthy majority for both. But because there are over Twice as many Democratic voters in Mayor Daley's precincts as there arc eligible voters in both parties in all of Peoria County, it is doubtful if Peoria County' mil have an important influence on the outcome of the race.
In fact. until the 1970's Peoria County remained primarily a self-contained unit. having little effect on or interest in the slate. In return, the state indicated little interest, in. Peoria despite the fact that it is the third largest city and has the sixth highest per capita income in the stale. Then. in 1972 Gov. Walker intruded upon Peoria's isolation. For the first time in many years a gubernatorial candidate visited Peoria, not once but numerous times — and not for just a press conference at the airport. Walker was wooing the downstate counties and Peoria was crucial to his strategy. His political work in the county helped him win the primary, and he continued his interest after the election. Even Republicans admit, that Walker is the first governor to pay any attention to the county. which has netted approximately $75 million in road projects during Walker's administration. Several million additional dollars have been give the county for a variety of projects including an outright grant of million for one small rural township to build a high school. Mayor Carver has also been able to obtain a substantial amount of funds for the city of Peoria He was able to convince the University of Illinois to establish its regional medical school in the urban renewal area in Peoria, and he obtained $15 million in funds for a civic center complex to be located,in the downtown
12/ August 1976 / Illinois Issues
Carver hasn't stopped at the state level, however. Since taking office, he has been shuttling back and forth to Washington, D.C— each time bringing home a wheel barrow full of dollars from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to unload in the downtown section. To dale the city has received a total of $10 million. Carver may be Peoria's one hope of gaming some real influence over state government. For a while he was considered a contender for the position of lieutenant governor on Thompson's ticket, but eventually he decided not to run. However, Illinois voters can expect to hear his name mentioned for office again in 1978.
Peoria's prominence
If Carver does decide to run and wins.
he will be the first Peorian in half a
century to be elected to a statewide post.
In fact, only five Peorians have held
state offices in the history of Illinois.
And two of them, Robert Ingersoll and
John E. Cassidy. were appointed to fill
vacancies. The third, Gov. Thomas
Ford, was actually from Ogle County
and didn't reside in Peoria until he had
completed his term in office. Probably
the Peorian to rise the highest on the
national level was Sailor Boy, a Chesapeake
Bay Setter reared in Peoria, who
eventually became Theodore Roosevelt's dog.
Recently, however, Peorians have moved into prominence on the national scene. Congressman Michel, who resides in Peoria, holds one of the most Powerful positions in Congress as a minority whip. Michel is also being considered as a possible candidate to present the keynote address at the Republican National Convention. His recent rise in political circles augurs some national assistance to Peoria County in a variety of forms.
Carver, too, has set his sights on the national scene. He is considered one of the nation's up-and-coming young mayors. Appearing on NBC's Meet the press last July, he received national recognition. Will the question some day be phrased: "Can a Peorian be elected to the White House?" ž
August 1976/ Illinois Issues/ 13