Chicago By MILTON RAKOVE

More messages from the voters

THE NOVEMBER 7 election is past, and all over Illinois (and the nation) politicians are breathing sighs of relief (if they won), or engaging in retrospective analysis (if they lost).

All over Illinois, politicians have been proclaiming loudly to their constituents that they got the message sent out bythe voters on November 7. Sen. Charles H. Percy, shaken by a close call, has the message that the voters are tired of big spending, high taxes and lack of attention to their personal gripes.

Big winner Gov. James R. Thompson, who got that message two years ago and who ran a two-year administration based on doing as little as he could about as much as possible in order to not raise taxes, has had his judgment confirmed and has received a new communication: "Do the same thing for two more years and the lightning might strike again in 1980 and propel you into the White House."

Atty. Gen. William J. Scott and Secy. of State Alan J. Dixon again got the message that they can win big electoral victories in Illinois by running for safe, minor public offices, and staying away from contests for major offices where they might have serious opposition and be forced to talk about important public policy issues and possibly alienate special interest constituencies.

Chicago Mayor Michael A. Bilandic and Cook County Board President George W. Dunne got the message again that keeping budgets low, taxes down and relying on the local Democratic machine's precinct organization will keep voters in Chicago and Cook County quiet, if not happy, and return them to their respective offices. And Bilandic has received an additional message that promoting Grant Park concerts, lakefront festivals, a new library, marathon races and possibly a new sports stadium, not only gives the citizenry pleasure, but is also good politics.

The Democratic machine in Cook County has received the message that its strength in the county is undiminished and that it can still easily carry the county for city politicians who run for county office. It can continue to ignore suburban politicians, knowing that the city politicians who control county public policies can continue to do so, despite the decline in the city's population and the explosion of the suburban population, because of the cohesiveness of the city voters and the fragmentation of the suburban electorate.

The machine in the City of Chicago got the message that Mayor Bilandic's reelection by a massive majority next April is assured. The blacks and Poles, the two largest groups in the city electorate, will be pacified by running Commissioner of Human Services Cecil A. Partee for city treasurer and Alderman Roman C. Pucinski for city clerk. The election of at least 45 machine aldermen to the 50-member city council in February 1979 is also a certainty. Those things, in turn, mean that the Bilandic administration can pretty much do whatever it wants to do in the city for the next four years.

Chicago's suburban voters sent a message that they will continue to vote for both Republican and Democratic blue ribbon candidates such as Percy, Thompson, Scott, Dixon and Dunne. But they won't vote in sufficient numbers for unknown, underfinanced Republican county candidates running against well-financed, entrenched Democratic machine officeholders from the city. And, in two sub urban congresssional districts, the 10th, on Chicagoland's North Shore, and the 3rd, encompassing the far south suburban area, Congressmen Abner J. Mikvaand Martin A. Russo have probably received a message that their seats are fairly safe, barring a gerrymandering redistricting in 1981. A new era of suburban congressional politics may be beginning in Cook County.

Statewide, the voters of Illinois have sent a message that a black man, Roland Burns, and an Italian Catholic, Jerome A. Cosentino, could be elected statewide minor offices for the first time in the state's history because of continuing Democratic strength in Chicago, growing Democratic strength in the suburbs and a more balanced Downstate vote. As yet, that growing Democratic statewide strength has not manifested itself in contests for major offices such as governor or U .S. senator by Chicago area ethnics and blacks. But that, in time, may come too, if present trends continue.

Statewide, too, major Republican officeholders such as Thompson,Percy and Scott have sent a message which is old and unchanging in Republican politics in Illinois. The message is that such candidates have weak or non- existent coattails and that such office holders build personal careers! generally ignore party responsibilities. In contrast to the disciplined, centralized Democratic Cook County machine, which expects its officeholders to subordinate their ambitions and offices to party needs, the Republican party in Chicago, Cook County and Illinois faces a bleak future as a party.

Finally, the most important message of our contemporary time of troubles is that the ruinous inflation is wiping out most of the voters and that the only way to deal with the problem is for the government to take steps to control the economy and at the same time reduce spending on nonessential progrmas. Most of the current crop of office seekers and officeholders have ignored that message.

34/ January 1979/ Illinois Issues