Chicago

By ED McMANUS

Primary winners, losers and surprises

THE PRIMARY election is over, and the stage is now set for another bruising general election contest for the job of Cook County state's attorney. Incumbent Democrat Richard M. Daley has easily won renomination, but he faces formidable opposition in the person of former Chicago Police Supt. Richard Brezczek. And the possibility looms that the black community will put up its own candidate.

Daley overwhelmed Lawrence Bloom in the primary, winning 64 percent of the vote. The son of the late mayor got an impressive 72 percent in the suburbs and 62 percent in the city. Bloom, a white Chicago alderman, was endorsed by Mayor Harold Washington and relied heavily on the black wards for support. He managed to win 18 of the 50 wards but none of the 30 suburban townships.

Four years ago, Daley did almost as well in the primary against Ald. Edward Burke, who was endorsed by then-Mayor Jane Byrne. Daley won 60 percent in the city and 70 percent in the suburbs for a countywide 63 percent. Burke won only nine wards. (Daley went on to beat Republican incumbent Bernard Carey in the general election.)

It could be a different story this November. Brezczek, who served under Byrne, has wide name recognition. He was unopposed in the Republican primary. Daley remains the favorite, but there continues to be speculation that a black — perhaps Judge Eugene Pincham — will run as an independent. A black candidate would have little chance of winning countywide but certainly could chip away a significant portion of Daley's vote in the city and hand the election to Brezczek.

Mayor Washington had hoped to elect enough Democratic ward committeemen in March to wrest control of the party from Ald. Edward Vrdolyak. The main battleground was in 11 crucial wards on the liberal north lakefront and in Hispanic and multiracial areas. But Vrdolyak lost only four of the 11, and the winners in only two of those four wards were endorsed by Washington. At this writing it appears that Vrdolyak is headed for easy reelection as party chairman.

A big part of the problem for the mayor was that in several predominantly black wards where a single Washington-backed candidate could have won, several blacks ran, dividing the black vote and allowing a Vrdolyak supporter to win. The mayor could have used his muscle to assure that there would be only one black candidate in each ward, but then he undoubtedly would have been attacked by the press for betraying the good-government reform platform upon which he ran for mayor.

Mayor Washington will go to the Democratic convention with 35 delegates committed to him, which will give him some influence in selecting the presidential nominee

One important victory Washington scored, however, was in getting his delegates elected to the Democratic National Convention. He will go to San Francisco this summer with 35 delegates commited to him, which will give him some influence in selecting the presidential nominee.

Another familiar name surfaced in this year's primary. Former Chicago Mayor Michael Bilandic came out of political retirement to run for judge of the Illinois Appellate Court and wound up first in a field of five candidates for the Democratic nomination in the 1st Judicial District. He is likely to sail into office in November.

In the suburbs, supporters of ultra-right presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche made surprising inroads. A candidate backed by LaRouche's "National Democratic Policy Committee" (which has nothing to do with the Democratic party) won the Democratic nomination for Will County auditor, and 57 other "LaRouchies" were elected Democratic precinct committeemen in Will, DuPage, Kane, Lake and McHenry counties. Regular Democrats insisted that in most cases voters didn't realize what the LaRouche candidates stood for.

One of the most dramatic developments of the primary was the defeat of four out of six incumbent Cook County judges, all of whom were serving by appointment and were seeking Democratic nominations. Some observers believe the public cynicism created by Operation Greylord, the federal investigation of alleged judicial corruption in the county, may have caused the defeat of the four: L. Michael Getty, Cornelius F. Dore Jr., Morton C. Elden and Joseph J. Urso. Urso is an associate judge, appointed by the circuit court; the other three had been appointed by the Supreme Court to fill circuit court vacancies. None of the judges has been implicated in the Greylord investigation, and each was endorsed by bar groups and by the Democratic party. But all four were beaten by relatively unknown attorneys running without party organization support.

42/May 1984/Illinois Issues