There are about 20 candidates on next week’s Democratic primary ballot who have decidedly bad reputations. They’re usually referred to in the daily newspapers as “followers of right-wing political extremist Lyndon LaRouche Jr.” The Democratic Party of Illinois is handing out thousands of palm cards that shorten the label to “LaRouche extremist,” backed with several nasty allegations about the still more abbreviated “LaRouchies.”
Take Rose-Marie Love, the candidate for secretary of state. That office is best known for patronage, and so Love’s candidacy is wholly appropriate. She used to be a county health worker and a precinct captain for 24th Ward committeeman and alderman Bill Henry. In 1986, amid Council Wars, Henry threatened to run for a major office and disrupt the Democrats’ slate unless they put Love on the County Board ticket. So they did; Harold Washington endorsed her too, and she won, only to fade promptly into obscurity. Come 1990, with Henry in legal hot water, the Democrats happily dumped her, claiming she’d skipped too many meetings and slept through the ones she attended. She said they were racist (a common complaint in 1990) and opposing her for her independent views, which won her some support. But most black independents just laughed: she’d been a regular most of her political life and had never, in their view, shown much independence in the first place.
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Very well then, what does that wing stand for? The Democratic leadership asserts that the “LaRouchies” are basically racist, anti-Semitic cultists and conspiracy theorists. They cite “a reign of terror directed at the Socialist Workers Party and the Communist Party” in the mid-70s. It’s all very amusing: what are regular Democrats doing sticking up for socialists and communists? And accusing a party whose leading candidates are black of racism? The presence of the LaRouche candidates on the ballot has already turned a number of hallowed verities upside down.
It’s not tough to parlay these ideas into local equivalents. Presumably Jones or Harper, for example, if either became governor, would push vigorously for public works programs and just as vigorously for strictures on the futures industry and the state’s relations with Wall Street. (Of course, the Illinois legislature, particularly Michael Madigan’s house, is well-known for its ability to deny opposition governors what they want.) Beaudette as treasurer would have substantial opportunities to trouble the banking world, and he, like Harper, has a real shot at victory, at least in the primary. As for hot-button issues, Jones has stated opposition to gambling–an obviously unproductive activity–and she supports school vouchers.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): Illustration/M.K. Brooks.
