Baby boom generation to challenge candidates of '90s

Politics, like baseball, has two sea­sons: the regular season, from the first ball tossed out until the World Series is over, and the brief season afterwards when everyone is endlessly analyzing what happened and what it means for the next season. With the 1988 election over, that brief political season is in full swing.

In examining the 1988 election returns in Illinois, I find one trend that is changing the political structure: The baby boom generation, which will become the major group in the electorate in the 1990s and through the beginning of the next century, is beginning to decide what kind of leaders it wants. This trend is also evident in political realignment taking place in Illinois.

The geographical realignment in Cook County is the most obvious trend. Until recently the Democratic party dominated Chicago, and the Republican party dominated the suburbs in the county. Because there were far more voters in the city than in the suburbs, however, the Democrats would dominate the county wide vote.

In the 1988 presidential race in Cook County, the city cast 51 percent of the countywide vote and the suburbs cast 49 percent. Since the suburbs are viewed as Republican, it would be assumed that the races for the county offices were close. They were not.

For example, in the race for Cook County clerk of the circuit court between Republican Ed Vrdolyak and Democrat Aurelia Pucinski, Pucinski with 59 percent of the vote easily beat Vrdolyak (former Democratic county chairman). She won by dominating the city vote and by running almost even with Vrdolyak in the suburbs. (It should also be noted that while Democratic countywide candidates dominated the vote in Chicago, two supposedly formidable Democratic candidates failed miserably in challenging incumbent Republicans in state Senate districts that lie mostly within the city limits.)

Why did Pucinski run so well in the suburbs? Our polling during the campaign indicated two main reasons for her strength: the negative opinion that suburban voters had of Vrdolyak (he was the alderman of Chicago city council war fame) and, equally as important, the belief among Pucinski supporters near the end of the campaign that she represented something new. Even though Vrdolyak's issues were more popular in the suburbs than Pucinski's, he was a known commodity who did not satisfy what voters evidently wanted: someone who had the potential to grow as a leader.

The feeling among voters that they are leaning towards the candidate who is new and shows growth potential was particularly strong among voters who were from 30 to 50 years old. This age group, mainly of the baby boom generation, evidently wants change, but its idea of change depends on its idea of the status quo. In the several ethnic wards in Chicago where Vrdolyak won with the support of that same age group, Vrdolyak's views represented change when compared to the Chicago status quo.

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The election returns and polling done by my firm using open-ended questions appear to confirm this preference of voters in the 30-50 age group for candidates whom they perceived had a potential for growth and a willingness to make changes. A candidate's party, home base, sex or race were all secondary to these voters. For example, Democrat Carol Moseley Braun, a black woman from Chicago, easily captured the Cook County recorder of deeds office, even though her white male Republican opponent had campaign literature featuring her picture.

Downstate there were also signs that voters were willing to support candidates who spoke out for change. In the 95th state representative district, located in a part of western Illinois that is heavily Republican, Democrat William Edley beat Republican Ken McMillan with 53 percent of the vote, Edley's message to voters was that the state was not doing enough to help turn around the economy in the area, and he included the governor as part of the problem. In southern Illinois most voters strongly disagreed with Michael Dukakis' views on gun control, school prayer and the death penalty. But because Dukakis strongly advocated the need for change, he ran better than expected in southern Illinois, carrying 12 counties.

While the electorate appears to be looking for candidates who show a willingness to make changes, those changes must be gradual. The electorate appears to reject radical changes like those advocated in the late 1960s. For example, the question of calling a constitutional convention in Illinois was soundly defeated. One likely reason is that those who supported a new convention pushed it as an opportunity to make a great number of changes in the state Contititution. Evidently the electorate did no prefer so much change.

If the electorate continues to want leaders who avow change, but not too much, some interesting challenges will face candidates in Illinois' 1990 election for statewide offices. For longterm incumbents like the governor, the challenge will be to offer new ideas instead of more of the same. For any candidate, the challenge will be to walk the fine line between a willingness to make changes and shooting from the hip. Voters will see the difference.

The filing date for candidates seeking statewide office is only a year away, and the infighting has already begun among potential candidates. It is likely that public campaigning will start about the time the first baseball is tossed this spring. The time between the World Series and spring training is all too brief, and in Illinois, they'll soon be getting out the bats.□

Michael McKeon is head of McKeon & Associates, a national polling organization.

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