Are the majority of Illinoisans indifferent to virtue? That inference might be drawn from post-election punditry that credits President George W. Bush’s re-election to the rising up of righteous voters alarmed by the nation’s decades-long slide into perdition.
Analysts pushing the vote-for-godly-living scenario point to exit polls indicating moral values was the key issue for a plurality of voters — some 22 percent — four out of five of whom marked for the president over his Democratic challenger, U.S. Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts.
Thus, the argument goes, Bush has a clear mandate to pursue moral values as defined by the religious right on hot button issues such as abortion, gay marriage and fetal stem cell research.
So if a vote for Bush was a vote for rectitude, what can be said about Illinois, where almost 2.9 million folks, almost 55 percent, voted for the other guy? Reprobates all? Maybe not, one might conclude from a close look at statewide election returns. Perhaps the weakest links in the so-called Bible ballot argument are the assumptions that moral values can encompass only those espoused by social conservatives and that Bush voters overwhelmingly embraced the evangelical agenda.
For example, might not a voter opposed to pre-emptive warfare choose Kerry on moral grounds? Or a voter who deems adequate health care a more compelling moral issue than same-sex marriage? Or one concerned about economic justice or the environment? Such issues are just as much matters of conscience for some as faith-based policy-making is to others.
Moreover, the case can be made that the hot button issues aren’t paramount for many Bush voters. Consider the contest to replace U.S. Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, who’s retiring. Faced with the starkest philosophical choice they’ve had in years, Illinois voters in record numbers rejected Republican Alan Keyes, a Maryland transplant who made morality the focus of his campaign. Instead, they chose Democrat Barack Obama, a liberal state senator from Chicago, whom Keyes denounced as a socialist who stood for a culture evil enough to destroy the nation’s soul.
Keyes championed the religious right’s agenda in no-holds-barred fashion, so one could argue his almost 1.4 million vote total represented a fairly accurate count of Illinoisans for whom that version of moral values outweighed everything else — about 27 percent of the electorate.
Bush, though, pulled more than 2.3 million votes in Illinois, some 70 percent more than Keyes. The president carried 77 counties won by Obama, including the collar counties of DuPage, Kane, Lake and Will, where Bush outpolled Kerry by more than 100,000 while the conservative fire-brand was losing to the Democrat by more than 400,000. Presumably, “moral values” was not the overriding issue for the roughly 960,000 Bush voters statewide who didn’t support Keyes, but instead voted for the pro-choice, pro-gay-rights Obama.
The Democratic victories were expected, of course. Neither presidential campaign had much of a presence in Illinois, while Obama led by 40-plus percentage points in polls taken after Keyes was tapped to replace Jack Ryan, the original GOP nominee, who withdrew following disclosure of embarrassing divorce records.
Keyes was drafted by Republican leaders in part with the hope that his passionate oratory would energize conservative voters in a handful of downstate districts, providing coattails for legislative hopefuls. The ploy did not work, as voters rebuffed most of the GOP challengers, and Keyes’ candidacy was not much of a factor in ousting three of the four Democratic lawmakers who lost.
In the Senate, Republicans gained a seat when Granville businessman Gary Dahl ousted Peru Democratic Sen. Patrick Welch, a 22-year veteran, in a central Illinois district composed of counties Obama carried handily over Keyes. Dahl’s win trims the Democrats’ edge to 31-27, with one independent who caucuses with the Democrats, for the incoming legislature.
House Democrats also likely will lose a vote come January, to a 65-53 majority, after matching a trio of incumbent losses with a pair of newcomer wins. Among the vanquished was Rep. Ralph Capparelli of Chicago, defeated by Rep. Michael McAuliffe, the city’s sole GOP lawmaker. The loss of the 33-year veteran was a wash for Democrats, who claimed the open 15th District resulting from the redistricting-induced incumbent matchup in the 20th.
Also losing were two downstaters, Reps. Ricca Slone of Peoria and Bill Grunloh of Effingham. Slone may challenge her 230-vote loss to Aaron Schock, who at 23 is in line to become the legislature’s youngest member. Keyes was no factor in the Slone-Schock contest, losing Peoria County by more than a 2-to-1 margin, but he may have aided Willow Hill farmer and businessman David Reis, a 62-38 percent winner over Grunloh in the 108th District in southeastern Illinois, which includes seven of the 10 counties Keyes carried.
Offsetting the GOP gains, though, was the surprise victory of Cicero Democrat Michelle Chavez, who unseated GOP Rep. Frank Aguilar of Cicero with no visible campaign and only minimal expense.
While Chavez did it on a shoestring, Election 2004 also saw the nation’s most expensive race ever for a high court seat, as Washington County Circuit Judge Lloyd Karmeier, a Republican, bested Appellate Court Justice Gordon Maag, a Democrat, for the 5th District Illinois Supreme Court spot being vacated by retiring Justice Philip Rarick. Between them, Karmeier and Maag raised some $8.5 million, almost all of it from tort reform protagonists, with business and medical interests bankrolling Karmeier and trial lawyers and organized labor underwriting Maag. Proponents of limitations on medical malpractice awards hailed Karmeier victory — which cut the Democratic high court majority to 4-3 — as vindication for their position. Perhaps, but one has to wonder whether voters were motivated by tort reform principles, or by the unappealing choice between two candidates portrayed in vicious attack ads as soft on murderers, torturers and child molesters.
Just as in the presidential race, voters’ motivation may not be as simple as the winning side would have folks believe.
Charles N. Wheeler III is director of the Public Affairs Reporting program at the University of Illinois at Springfield.
Illinois Issues, December 2004
