July 20, 2016
MURPHY-THILLENS RACE IS KEY TO KEEPING CULLERTON'S SUPER-MAJORITY

ANALYSIS & OPINION BY RUSS STEWART

by RUSS STEWART

Here's a multiple-choice question: If you are one of 110 elected Democratic legislators in Springfield, 71 in the House and 39 in the Senate, to whom are you subservient and from whom do you take your orders?

(a) House Speaker Mike Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton. (b) Legislative staff. (c) Political campaign staff. (d) The Democratic Party of Illinois. (e) Your constituents. (f) None of the Above.

If you answered (a), (c) or (d), you are a shrewd observer of the Illinois political scene, and you probably suspect that (a) is a bit more blameworthy than Governor Bruce Rauner for the state's fiscal dysfunction.

Being a Democrat in Springfield is like being in the military. It's all about chain of command. You learn to hurry up and wait, to say "Yes, Sir" to Madigan and Cullerton, to vote as ordered, and, most importantly, to love your campaign staff -- who are chosen by Madigan and Cullerton -- as if they were your personal trainer and every election is a Mr. or Ms. Universe contest.

To be sure, it is Madigan and Cullerton who raise the necessary money to protect their respective 60 percent super majorities, which are 71-47 in the House and 39-20 in the Senate, but it is staff who get their robots to Springfield. It is staff who keep them there election after election. It is staff who ensure that the Madigan/Cullerton money is well spent.

"Our staff is better than their staff," crowed state Representative Marty Moylan (D-55). "They make us work harder." Laura Murphy, who was appointed as a state senator in 2015 when Democrat Dan Kotowski resigned, disagrees. "They are just more regimented," Murphy said of her House colleagues.

Moylan represents a Republican-leaning district centered on Park Ridge and Des Plaines, with parts of Elk Grove and Mount Prospect. He won his first term in 2012 by 2,610 votes, and he was re-elected in 2014 by 1,562 votes. In each contest, Moylan was scripted, scheduled and funded. Madigan and the Democratic Party, of which he is the chairman, do extensive polling to ascertain the issues that do or do not resonate, create simplistic slogans that are plausible, and unearth every scrap of dirt on the Republican opposition. For the current campaign, the generic, mass-produced, party-funded mailings, which are essentially the same in every tier-one (meaning competitive) district, will be "he/she stands up to Governor Rauner." In tier-one races, 20 mailers from Labor Day to Election Day are the norm. Madigan helped Moylan raise close to $500,000 in each of his races, mostly from unions, and he pumped in another $500,000 in mailing and staff costs.

It works like this: Madigan and Cullerton have an "administrative" budget, and they can hire legislative staffers who work for the leadership, committees or various members. They are trained in electioneering skills. When the session ends around June 1, they are furloughed, removed from the state payroll, put on the party payroll, and deployed to run campaigns in all the tier-one and tier-two districts, about 20 in total.

Some contests, like Moylan's past two, had three staffers, and they can be borderline sadistic. Moylan said that he is "working 60 hours a week" in the precincts, from noon to 8 p.m. Staff recruits unpaid interns, usually college students or grads, who do campaign grunt work with the expectation of a staff job if they excel.

The Democrats have raised the mundane task of door knocking to an art. Using Moylan as an example, here's how it works. The staff members sit in the office and makes sure the candidate is out of the office. The party's database has a list of every voter, how frequently they vote and their party preference if any, which is cross referenced with recent property purchases. A list is compiled of registered, likely and potential new voters. Staff shove Moylan out the door with three interns and a walking route, with a target of 500 door knocks and 200 face-to-face contacts per day. One intern sticks with the Moylan, and the other two take opposite sides of the street and start hitting doorbells, with Moylan a couple houses behind. When they get a "live one," they make their pitch, point out Mr. Moylan across the street or down the block, and signal for him to get over there. A few pleasantries are exchanged, and he's off to the next house. The intern stays behind, does a hard sell and enters the voter's e-mail address and phone numbers into an iPad, also asking the names of any other household voters and whether they will post a lawn sign. They also help new arrivals get registered.

Almost two-thirds of the door knocks are nonresponsive, so a "Sorry I Missed You" card and literature is left, with a follow-up note. At days' end, Moylan is back in the office, returning all his cell phone messages, calling back the voters he just met and making fund-raising pitches. Then it starts anew the next day.

Only about 10 percent of incumbents have to work hard, as do candidates in competitive open seats. Most districts are one-party preserves, so the primary election is the most difficult.

Murphy's 28th District contains two House seats, Moylan's in the east portion and Michelle Mussman's (D-56) in the west, encompassing Schaumburg, Streamwood and Hanover Park, plus Roselle in DuPage County. Murphy is opposed by Mel Thillens of Park Ridge, who nearly beat Moylan in 2014. Murphy is atop Cullerton's tier-one "must save" list, along with incumbents Gary Forby (D-59) of far Downstate Benton and Melinda Bush (D-31) of the Grayslake-Gurnee area in Lake County. Polling in Southern Illinois has Donald Trump 20 points ahead of Hillary Clinton, so that could sweep out Forby, and Bush, who won by 2,267 votes in 2012, is viewed as "lazy," meaning that she doesn't work precincts 60 hours per week.

At some risk are Tom Cullerton (D-23) of Villa Park, and seats in the Plainfield-Mokena and Champaign areas. Incumbent John Sullivan (D-47) of Quincy in Western Illinois is retiring, and the Democrats fielded no candidate. Cullerton needs 36 Democrats to keep his super majority, so he can override any Rauner veto and pass bills in session overtime.

Democratic strategists grouse that Murphy is no Kotowski, a reference to the legendary precinct-walking exploits of the former senator, who set the bar very high. Kotowski moved to Park Ridge from Rogers Park in 2004, announced for senator in 2005, and started his 6-hour-a-day regimen, which he continued even after winning, albeit narrowly, in 2006 and 2008. The district was remapped in 2011, but Kotowski spent a year in the west end of it and won 45,656-34,035, 57.2 percent of the vote. He resigned to head a social service agency in 2015, and Murphy, who is the Maine Township Democratic committeeman, appointed herself as his successor.

"Nobody I've talked to has seen her" going door to door, Thillens, who runs his family's armored truck company and who is a Park Ridge Park Board member, said. Murphy begs to differ: "I'm spending most of my time" in the west end, in Schaumburg and Streamwood, she said. "I'm walking door to door." She has staff from Cullerton, she has raised $213,839 since July 1, 2015, and assuredly is on program and on message.

Murphy has been in Springfield only 6 months longer than Rauner, but she has quickly learned the art of dissembling, or answering questions by not answering them. The state has no budget. "There are people with special needs, there are people who are vulnerable, she said. "We must provide an umbrella. Every family has somebody who is a senior, has a disability, or needs a social service." Who pays for those needs? "I am opposed to any individual income tax increase," she said. "We cannot look to the pockets of middle class families." Again, who pays? "Reforms" are the answer, she said, and she advocates more taxes on corporations. "Did you know that two-thirds (of Illinois) corporations pay no taxes?" she asked, claiming that a newspaper article asserted that corporate tax credits amounted to $73 billion over the past 5 years. "We need tax reform," she said.

So, why doesn't the 39-20 super majority Democratic Senate pass those reforms? "Because they won't pass the House," Murphy said. Madigan's House passed a 2016 budget that had a $7 billion deficit, which the speaker expected to cure by having Rauner agree to boost taxes. Murphy said that she is "opposed" to Madigan's budget. Cullerton never prepared or passed a budget because he didn't want his senators to go on record as pro-tax.

Meanwhile, Thillens is plodding along. He raised $95,417 in the past year. He said that state government "mandates," such as paying painters $48 per hour, are choking local government. He said that the solution to the budget "crisis" is to encourage businesses to grow, to hire more employees, to generate more sales, and to pay more taxes based on the higher profits.

My prediction: Cullerton will flood the district with false "she stands up to Rauner" mailers, boast that Murphy is for term limits, and make sure that all women voters get numerous joint Clinton-Duckworth-Murphy pieces. Murphy has a ballot-friendly name, and Cullerton will spend $1 million to elect her. Thillens will encounter some "Trump drag." Edge to Murphy.

Send e-mail to russ@russstewart. com or visit his Web site at www. russstewart.com.