What makes it hard, at first glance, to take Roger Reinstorf
seriously? Maybe it’s that his cheeks and lips are pierced — twice — and a thick
ring stretches out the hole in each of his earlobes. Jehovah’s Witnesses have
knocked on his door only to abruptly leave at the sight of him, he says.
But then ask him about his politics. At 28, Reinstorf has been
of voting age for ten years. You might not agree with his views, but they are
strong; he knows his right to vote is a clear way of expressing them. Come this
spring and fall, expect to see him at the ballot booth.
In 2002, only 33 percent of all registered voters in Illinois
chose to participate in the primary. In 2000, a presidential election year,
only 26 percent of Illinois voters felt the need to choose a party candidate.
Wisconsin primaries had similar low turnouts, which is why the state chose to
move its primary this year to Feb. 17, before only a handful of other states.
The Illinois primary is on March 16, two weeks after March
2, otherwise known as Super Tuesday — the day when ten states, including California,
New York, and Ohio, go to the polls. Between Super Tuesday and March 16, Texas
and Florida also will have voted. Political scientists say the presidential
candidates will be locked up by the time Illinois voters have their chance to
choose among them, likely resulting in another dismal, low-turnout year here.
But this spring, some are vowing to turn these Illinois voter-participation
numbers around, despite the state’s late primary date. Voter-registration drives
are aiming to stir up sleepy citizens at the precinct level. And a crowded and
open U.S. Senate race in Illinois has the potential to heat up quickly with
the ultimate possibility of dramatically shifting power in Congress for years
to come.
The Senate candidates are relying on minorities, younger voters
and the so-called swing vote to prove the experts wrong. If these groups are
represented well on March 16, expect to be surprised.
Reinstorf has been deeply influenced by two major events that
pundits claim have shaped his generation’s political philosophy — the 9-11 terrorism
attacks and the Monica Lewinsky scandal that led to the impeachment of President
Bill Clinton.
Reinstorf, an employee at New Age Tattoos & Body Piercing
on South Macarthur Boulevard, used to be the classic swing voter, defined not
as someone who switches party loyalty but as someone as likely to vote as not
to vote. “I was so unconcerned with the issues I really didn’t care. Nothing
really going on made an impact on me,” he says.
As Clinton’s lack of discipline became public spectacle, Reinstorf
knew the next time he had the chance, he’d vote for a strong leader marked by
virtue and action.
“I’d say [Clinton was] the first big sex scandal president,”
Reinstorf says. “It didn’t present him as a good enough character for a very
powerful nation.”
In 2000, he chose Texas Governor George W. Bush over Vice President
Al Gore. After the terrorist attacks, Reinstorf says his vote was vindicated.
“I couldn’t see Al Gore going over there, kickin’ ass and taking no names,”
he says. “I voted for Bush because he’s a hard ass, like his dad was.”
Reinstorf says he’s only browsed the names of candidates appearing
on March primary ballots for U.S. Senate.
“I’m keeping my eyes and ears open,” he says.
Let’s say, come March 16, the presidential candidates have
all the delegates they need to secure the nomination of their party. Does this
leave Illinoisans will little reason to head to the primary ballot booth? Doesn’t
the U.S. Senate race, with its 16 candidates running in the Democratic and Republican
primaries, matter? After U.S. Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, a Republican, announced
he wasn’t running for a second term last year, he left an open seat in a closely
divided chamber. The Senate has 51 Republican members, 48 Democrats and one
independent aligned with the Democratic Senate Caucus. If Democrats pick up
just two Senate seats, including Illinois’, control of the Senate would shift.
John Frendreis, political science professor at Loyola University
in Chicago, says this, unfortunately, will not inspire Illinois voters to head
to the polls in March. “There’s not a lot of buzz about the Senate race,” Frendreis
says. As if to confirm that point, one of the more serious candidates, state
Sen. Steve Rauschenburger, R-Elgin, this week blew a chance to talk about the
issues by releasing a statement announcing his bid to coach the beleaguered
Chicago Bears. The stunt apparently was meant to show how his opponents lack
the experience to run for political office.
“It’s always tough to speculate before the first vote is cast,
but if someone like [Howard] Dean appears unstoppable, it can suppress turnout
even with a Senate race,” Frendreis says. “Voter turnout really depends on how
hot the presidential race is for the Democrats. It’s the presidential race that
really brings people out.” And even that, he says, is “not too exciting.”
Wendy Cho, a political science professor at the University
of Urbana-Champaign, agrees. Not even the debacle of 2000 — when the U.S. Supreme
Court stepped in, halted the Florida recount, and essentially gave Bush the
White House — will likely energize voters in 2004. “Florida was a once-in-a-lifetime
thing. I don’t anticipate a huge turnout as a result.”
“I think people approach each election on its own merits,”
Frendreis says. “The question of who really won in 2000 — that’s only something
to whip up the activists. It’s the candidate who pulls in the greatest amount
of people from the center who will win — and these are the people least likely
to be energized by what happened in 2000.”
Frendreis’s and Cho’s prediction align with voter registration
figures at the Sangamon County Clerk’s office.
As of this week, 125,636 people are registered to vote in the
county. This is down by roughly 1,300 when compared to the number of people
registered in April, when Springfield voted for mayoral and aldermanic races.
The number of deputy registrars — the people the county authorizes to register
voters — also seems to be in flux. By the end of the November 2002 general elections,
the county had registered 229 registrars. As of this week, only 96 people were
signed up. The Clerk’s office says this number usually picks up the closer it
gets to election time.
Still, these numbers — nothing remarkable for this time of
year — don’t suggest that this will be the year of the voter, at least locally.
Frendeis says that although the field of candidates for Illinois’
U.S. Senate seat seems large — nine Republicans and seven Democrats — the money
required to run an effective race should knock most of them out of the running
fairly quickly. “It’s going to take money,” he says. “I would say it should
come down to the three or four candidates on either side who can really make
a dent.”
But he also allows for the wild-horse candidate — the one who
can stir things up at a grass-roots level and pull off some surprises. He specifically
mentioned state Sen. Barack Obama, D-Chicago. Obama, a Harvard Law School graduate
and a University of Chicago law professor, is well respected by many liberal
voters and is gaining ground with more and more endorsements. He also is the
one candidate whose organization, more than any other, hints at a revived electorate
this spring. One link on his Web site is titled “A chance to believe again.”
Obama’s candidacy is closely linked to one of the major voter-registration
drives in Springfield. At least two leading members for Unity for Our Community
are also on Obama’s downstate campaign team. One, Roy Williams, is running for
precinct captain, along with a slate of others, on Springfield’s east side.
While Williams says voter-registration drives haven’t picked up full speed yet,
the plan is to coordinate a top-to-bottom effort, with precinct candidates campaigning
for themselves all the way up to Obama, signing up voters along the way.
And as far as Frendeis’s thoughts about the impact of the 2000
election on voters this year? Some from Obama’s camp strongly disagree.
“We think Bush is dangerous,” says Tarak Shah, 21, an urban
planning major at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Shah and a
few of his friends, all UI College Democrats, showed up in Springfield mid-December
at an Obama rally. They recalled the 2000 election, the U.S. Supreme Court’s
controversial decision, and the Florida recount as reasons to get more involved
in politics.
“What’s restraining Bush now is that he has one election left,”
Shah says.
The right has its young movers and shakers too. Krystle Russin
is the youth coordinator for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Chirinjeev Kathuria,
a Chicago suburban health care and biotech entrepreneur with an M.D. from Brown
University and a M.B.A. from Stanford. Russin is just 16 – too young to vote,
lives in Quincy, and plans to graduate from high school this June. She’s been
writing for newspapers since junior high school, loves politics and journalism,
and sees a Republican revival.
“The biggest thing that people often forget is that young people
aren’t stupid,” she says. “You can find older voters who are well-informed and
others who can’t name their state legislators. It’s the same with young voters.
Because many people have friends and family in Iraq, especially young people,
I think that’s going to be a big issue. Also, with Saddam Hussein’s capture,
I think the chances for Republicans have gotten much better.
“When some people think of the Republican Party or Illinois
government, the first thought that comes to mind is [former governor] George
Ryan,” Russin says. “The situation in Illinois may sound discouraging at first.
But what we have to remember is there will only be a low voter turnout if we
don’t try to do something about it.”
Russin joined Kathuria’s campaign after interviewing him for
purepolitics.com, a mixed-bag of a Web site with partners such as HBO and National
Lampoon. Although Kathuria will most likely be regarded by the average voter
as “the candidate with the turban,” Russin saw something more.
“He isn’t just someone in a turban. He’s an American, and all
Americans, born here or who became citizens, are united by their belief in freedom
. . . . Where else can we have real choices on the ballot? Where else can we
speak out on our opinions? I really believe that’s the first thing that stood
out to me, and I hope it’s the same with voters.”
What stands out to Roger Reinstorf is the candidate who reaches
out. He still identifies himself, whether he knows it or not, as the all important
swing voter.
“When was the last time a candidate treated my age group seriously?”
he asks. “I’ve never seen anybody target tattooed and pierced people. I’ve never
been approached. They consider me a stereotype: biker, killer, in the joint.”
Reinstorf has two daughters, ages five and seven, whom he walks
to the school bus each morning. He enjoys watching the early news programs on
television. He doesn’t like sound bites and likes to know the whole story. Sound
familiar? He’s Joe Average voter.
What also sounds familiar is his belief, however faint, that
maybe, just maybe, his vote can make a difference.
“My vote isn’t going to make or break a candidate,” he says.
“But it could though, right?”
Big money
When it comes to raising contributions, the system favors incumbents
In 2002, Democrat Dick Durbin outspent Republican challenger James Durkin by
more than $5 million to retain his Senate job, a trend mirrored across Illinois
and the United States as incumbents outspent challengers in congressional races
two years ago.
The current campaign finance system, as a rule, gives incumbents an advantage
over challengers. Major donors — political-action committees and wealthy individuals
— dominate campaign giving, and they tend to put their money behind proven commodities.
The Center for Responsive Politics (CERP), a non-profit, non-partisan research
group based in Washington, D.C., has followed the trend.
Its research shows that in 2002, 33 incumbent Senators raised $191.5 million
compared to $71.9 million raised by 71 challengers. Not surprisingly, 85 percent
of the incumbents kept their jobs. In the House, the gap was more pronounced:
422 incumbents raised $379.1 million, 486 challengers raised $96 million — and
98 percent of the House incumbents were returned to office.
Republican Peter Fitzgerald’s decision to step down gives Illinois an open
Senate seat — something that could mean a more expensive contest once the field
of Republican and Democratic contenders is pared down in the March 16 primary.
Political handicappers tend to give Democrats an edge in Illinois — Gov. Rod
Blagojevich is a Democrat, and Democrats control the legislature, all constitutional
offices except treasurer, and dominate the Supreme Court.
But with control of the U.S. Senate hinging on the outcome of a few key contests,
like Illinois’, Republicans are likely to mount an aggressive and well-funded
campaign. The Senate currently has 51 Republicans, 48 Democrats, and one independent,
James Jeffords of Vermont.
Under the new McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, enacted in November, individuals
can give twice as much money to candidates, $2,000 instead of $1,000, and to
political action committees, $10,000 instead of $5,000. The law, however, banned
so-called “soft money” contributions to national political parties.
Senate and House candidates are required to file quarterly campaign disclosures,
and those with campaign committees in place last year must file a year-end report
that’s due on Jan. 31. Those reports become available on the Federal Election
Commission’s Web site, www.fec.gov.
CERP also maintains an Internet site, www.open-secrets.org,
that presents FEC data in an easy-to-search form. For example, the site shows
Sangamon County contributors gave more than $638,000 to federal candidates,
parties, and political-action committees in 2002. Of that total, $273,492, or
51 percent, went to Democratic candidates, $262,739, or 49 percent, to Republicans.
The rest went to third parties, independents and political-action committees
that aren’t affiliated with either major party. — Roland Klose
This article appears in Jan 8-14, 2004.
