Oak Park just ain't what it used to be. Neither is Don Harmon, Oak Park's Democratic township committeeman, a 10-year state senator and the powerful Illinois Senate president pro tempore.

Although it is still a bastion of liberalism, trying economic times are eroding Oak Park's habitually guilty minds. Barack Obama annihilated John McCain in Oak Park with 84.3 percent of the vote in the 2008 presidential race. Democrat Pat Quinn triumphed with 74.7 percent of the vote in the 2010 gubernatorial race, and Democrat Alexi Giannoulias won the Senate contest with 76.6 percent of the vote. Conservatism in general, either fiscal or social, and Republicanism in particular, have about as much appeal in Oak Park as a case of halitosis.

In years past, every self-respecting, politically correct, liberal white Oak Park Democrat would automatically vote for a black candidate over a white candidate, especially for a black woman, and even more urgently for a minority candidate or a woman over a white man whose surname ended in a vowel. To do otherwise would cause a paroxysm of guilt.

But times have changed, and such an aberration is exactly what may occur on March 20 in the Democratic primary for the newly configured 78th Illinois House District seat. Unless Harmon, like Horatio at the bridge, piles up a huge Oak Park margin to rescue Camille Lilly, the obscure black incumbent, white challenger Mike Nardello may win.

"If Harmon doesn't deliver well over 60 percent of the Oak Park vote for her, then Mike wins," said Oak Parker K.L. Daly, Nardello's campaign manager.

Like everywhere else in Chicago and the Cook County suburbs, Oak Park property values have collapsed. Homes valued at $850,000 and up as recently as 2007 are now well under $500,000, but property taxes continue to climb. "The issue is affordable housing," Nardello said.

"Reckless and undisciplined spending, both at the state and local level, is making home ownership unaffordable, and I hold every public official, including Lilly, and particularly Harmon, accountable," Nardello said. "The root of the problem is that we continue to elect the same old ineffectual politicians to office, and they fail to find solutions."

Lilly was appointed to Democrat Deborah Graham's House seat in 2010 after Graham was appointed 29th Ward alderman, replacing Ike Carothers, who was convicted of bribery. Lilly, Graham's protege, was then and still is the vice president of external affairs for Loretto Hospital, a full-time job. However, according to a Lilly campaign staffer, Lilly does not get paid by the hospital for days spent in Springfield or elsewhere. She says that she's a founding member of the Austin Chamber of Commerce, and she was the chamber's paid executive director until 2010. Sounds like she's a 24/7 kind of woman.

Because Lilly was appointed to Graham's seat after the March 2010 primary, she was unopposed in the 2010 election, and March 20 is her first competitive race.

Lilly did not respond to four phone calls to her legislative and political offices requesting an interview.

"That's not atypical," Daly said. "She has no presence and no visibility in the district. She is totally unknown."

Designed in 2001 to elect a black Democrat, the old 78th District was 39 percent black and 14 percent Hispanic, encompassing most of the black-majority 29th and 37th wards in Chicago, all of Oak Park north of Madison Street, and Hispanic areas around Melrose Park, River Forest and Maywood. Graham won the seat in 2002, and she was never seriously challenged. The new 78th District, crafted by Democratic Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan, eliminates all territory west of Harlem Avenue and south of North Avenue and adds Elmwood Park, River Grove and Franklin Park, largely white areas with growing a growing Hispanic population. According to 2010 census figures, the district is now 50 percent white, 30 percent black and 20 percent Hispanic.

Harmon, an Oak Park attorney, also had his 39th Illinois Senate district crafted for him in 2001, and he won unopposed in 2002 and 2008 and with 76.7 percent of the vote in 2006. He was unopposed in the 2002 and 2008 primaries, and he beat Nardello in 2006 with 78.8 percent of the vote. Harmon is now a close ally of Illinois Senate President John Cullerton.

Harmon's Senate district contained both Graham's 78th House District and Skip Saviano's 77th House District. Saviano, a Republican from Elmwood Park, was a onetime aide to Democratic state Senator Jim DeLeo and a principal of the Elmwood Park Republican machine run by Mayor Pete Silvestri. Saviano's district, which was 84 percent white and 22 percent Hispanic in 2001, included Elmwood Park, River Grove, Franklin Park, Northlake, Schiller Park, Rosemont, a piece of Chicago and Bensenville in DuPage County.

A nonaggression pact was struck. Harmon shared an office with Saviano in Elmwood Park, and Graham officed with Harmon in Oak Park. Harmon made sure Leyden Township Democrats gave Saviano a pass, and Saviano made sure Republicans never seriously contested Harmon. Harmon made sure that Oak Park propped up Graham, campaigning as part of the Harmon/Graham (and, in 2008, Obama) team. Having a black female face on his literature was helpful.

The 2011 remap changed everything. Saviano, who was first elected in 1992 and who was no longer buddy-buddy with Madigan, found his Elmwood Park base in Lilly's 78th District, along with River Grove and Franklin Park. The new 77th District now lies west of Mannheim Road, including Northlake, Rosemont, Bensenville, Addison and parts of Elk Grove, Villa Park, Wood Dale and Elmhurst; it also picked Stone Park, Melrose Park and parts of River Forest and Maywood from the old 78th District. Madigan has recruited and will fund a Saviano foe, Kathy Willis. Saviano has $378,094 in cash on hand, and he is unbeatable.

Nardello said he's been "campaigning heavily" in Saviano's old district and that voters "don't realize" that he will no longer be their representative. "I try to educate them," he said. "If they want somebody like Saviano, they should vote for me."

The contenders have very different profiles:

Nardello is the director of finance for city Department of Family and Support Services, grew up in River Grove, has a family business in Elmwood Park, graduated from Holy Cross High School, and is a longtime resident of Galewood in the 36th Ward, where he lives with his wife and three children. He has a master's degree in finance from DePaul University. He is a close ally of Alderman Nick Sposato (36th), who scored a huge upset in 2011 over the ward's William Banks machine. Nardello expects that the minions of the Saviano-Silvestri organization in Elmwood Park will covertly aid him, as a Lilly win in 2012 could embolden Harmon and Leyden Township Democratic Committeeman Barrett Pedersen, Franklin Park's mayor, to take on Saviano in 2014. "I will resign my (Chicago) job if elected state representative," Nardello pledged.

Lilly is the quintessential non-politician, viewing public office more as an entitlement than a privilege. She is a graduate of Drake University, and she has a master's in hospital administration from Oklahoma University. In the rough-and-tumble, Austin-based 29th Ward, where Graham has plenty of detractors, Lilly is viewed as a dilettante who has not earned her job. She has not attempted to build her own political organization, and she is totally reliant on Graham and Harmon. U.S. Representative Danny Davis (D-7), a former ward alderman, is opposing Graham for Democratic committeeman, and most of Carothers' old backers are with Davis.

Davis, age 70, may retire in 2016. He wants to be the committeeman to have input into his succession, and he does not want Graham to be his successor. Lilly's plight is everybody's afterthought.

The new 78th District contains 104 precincts in three diverse areas: 35 in Oak Park, the mostly white, upscale owner-occupied area north of Madison Street, which has few renters and minorities; 36 in Franklin Park (10), River Grove (eight) and Elmwood Park (18), which are a mix of working class white ethnics and Hispanics; and 33 in Chicago, including Galewood in the 36th Ward (10), which is Nardello's base, and the predominantly black 29th (18) and 37th (five) -- a loss of 8 black precincts from the current district.

During the second half of 2011, Lilly raised $39,161 and Nardello raised $36,334. Lilly has been a reliable Madigan vote in Springfield, backing the income tax hike and the Chicago Board Options Exchange and Sears tax deals. Harmon raised $333,061 during the same period, and he had $311,905 on hand.

Turnout will be anemic on March 20, in the realm of 20 to 22 percent. That means 7,000 to 7,200 Democrats in the 78th District. The vote in the eastern (Chicago) portion of the district will be about 2,400, with Nardello winning 65 to 70 percent in the 36th Ward and with Lilly taking 80 percent in the black wards. That puts her up by 100 to 200 votes. In the western portion of the district (Leyden Township), with 1,900 votes, Nardello will win 1,300-600, a bulge of 700 votes. So the real battleground will be Oak Park, where turnout will be about 2,800 and where the Harmon machine will be scavenging for every possible vote. Lilly's magic margin is 600 votes. Harmon must carry his 35 precincts by 1,700-900.

My prediction: Guilt is a great motivator, but the Obama fervor of 2008 has dissipated. Nardello has positioned himself as an "independent-thinking" Democrat, and he won't suffer McCain's fate in Oak Park. In an upset, Nardello will beat Lilly by 100 votes.

(Editor's Note: Stewart, an attorney, was consulted by Nardello on legal issues in 2011, but he has no connection to Nardello's campaign.)