Illinois' presidential primaries: one of life's little ironies

For the first time in modern history, presidential candidates this March won't have to share the Illinois primary election stage with any statewide aspirants. Groundwork for the presidential monopoly was laid in 1970, when the Sixth Illinois Constitutional Convention decided to move the state's gubernatorial election cycle to nonpresidential years, starting in 1978. The theory behind the shift was simple: Illinois voters would be better able to focus on state issues without presidential politics competing for their attention.

But in two intervening presidential election years, 1972 and 1976, the White House sweepstakes were overshadowed by the Executive Mansion races at primary time, first when Daniel Walker upset then Lt. Gov. Paul Simon for the Democratic nomination for governor, and then four years later when the incumbent Walker was himself ousted by Secy. of State Michael J. Howlett. Even after the new gubernatorial cycle was in place, presidential politics was upstaged in the 1980 and 1984 primaries by bitterly contested fights for each party's U.S. Senate nomination.

But now it's 1988. There are no U.S. Senate seats on the line nor a fifth term for Gov. James R. Thompson at issue, so IIlinoisans finally can concentrate on playing a key role in choosing the nation's next president from among the pack of hopefuls ardently seeking their favor, right? Maybe.

In one of life's little ironies, the opportunity at last for the undivided attention of the Illinois electorate seems certain to be hollow for some, if not most, of the White House hopefuls on the state ballot. In fact, the results here could be of little significance in the grander scheme of things. That's because before Prairie State polls open at 6 a.m. on March 15, better than half the country already will have made its choices; more than likely the stragglers in the pack will have been consigned to the trivia buffs by then, and conceivably both parties' nominations could be all but sewn up.

It's true that in recent years, two atypical states, Iowa and New Hampshire, have played exaggerated roles in the presidential nominating process — every nominee in the last three elections has won at least one of the pair and finished no worse than second in the other. But Illinois, a microcosm of the nation and the first of the big industrial states to vote, has made its presence felt in the past, too. In 1980, for example, Illinois Democrats applied the coup de grace to U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's hopes by overwhelmingly supporting President Jimmy Carter, and four years ago, former Vice President Walter F. Mondale used a narrow Illinois win over U.S. Sen. Gary Hart of Colorado to help propel him to more comfortable victories in key industrial states like New York, Pennsylvania and Michigan.

But that was before Super Tuesday, the 20-state delegate selection extravanganza occurring the week before the Illinois primary. The closest thing yet to a national primary, Super Tuesday is concentrated in the South, where all of Dixie but South Carolina and the border states of Missouri and Maryland go to the polls. Adding South Carolina, which has a Republican primary the Saturday before and Democratic caucuses the Saturday after, there will be about a third of the Republican delegate slots and more than a quarter of the Democratic convention berths at stake.

A clear-cut winner on Super Tuesday would be virtually unstoppable, particularly under Democratic rules, which favor divvying up a state's delegates according to the candidates' relative primary showings, rather than a winner-take-all format that would allow an underdog to make a quick comeback in the convention count.

Given that possibility, the Illinois presidential primary — one of the nation's earliest indicators of popular sentiment just a decade ago — could be an anticlimactic affair in 1988. Still, the Illinois presidential sweepstakes are not without their interesting points. Consider the diverse field entered in the so-called beauty contest, the nonbinding preference vote. Six Republicans and seven Democrats are on their respective

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ballots, and the Democrats will be joined by political extremist Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr., despite the party's efforts to oust him.

While a strong showing in the popularity contest is great for worker morale and TV news pundits, what really counts is the concurrent voting for convention delegates. Four years ago, for example, Mondale took only 40 percent of the Democratic popular vote, but wound up with almost 60 percent of the delegates, in part because Hart, the runner-up, wasn't able to field a full slate of delegates.

That lesson has not escaped the notice of campaign strategists, of course; most of the serious contenders in both parties filed full slates in all 22 congressional districts. On the Republican side, Vice President George Bush, U.S. Senate Minority Leader Robert Dole of Kansas, U.S. Rep. Jack F. Kemp of New York and former television evangelist Pat Robertson all filed full slates of 82 candidates.

Among the Democrats, U.S. Sen. Paul Simon of Illinois, Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis and former Arizona Gov. Bruce Babbitt all filed complete, 113-person slates. Other Democratic hopefuls represented in each district include Hart, with 109 candidates, and U.S. Rep. Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri, with 108. U.S. Sen. Albert Gore Jr. of Tennessee has 92 backers in 19 districts, and Illinois' other favorite son — the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson — filled his ticket in every district but the north suburban 12th, where no one filed under his banner.

While the presidential primary here might not have great national import, voters in either major party and anywhere across the state will have a wide array of delegate candidates from which to choose. That's in marked contrast, it might be added, to the paucity of competition for the General Assembly, where once again actual experience belies the claim of greater competitiveness made by those promoting single-member districts and reducing the size of the Illinois House almost 10 years ago.

For the record, in only four House districts are there primary battles in both parties; and only 22 incumbents face opposition in March, compared to 38 representatives — more than a third of the chamber — who have neither a primary nor a general election foe.

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