Does Stroger have what it takes to win?

Does Stroger
October 18, 2006
BY CAROL MARIN Sun-Times Columnist

'If Todd Stroger wins the election next month, it will be in spite of himself." So said a veteran politician and Stroger ally Tuesday.
Todd Stroger's campaign for his dad's old job as president of the Cook County Board has been a passionless, almost aimless pursuit. I know some of this firsthand because last Thursday I was hovering around the 9th floor conference room here at the Chicago Sun-Times, waiting for Ald. Stroger to arrive. He was scheduled to meet the paper's editorial board and I, along with some of the paper's other reporters, was going to sit in and listen.

It had taken four phone calls just to get a commitment from Stroger to show up.

When the appointed time arrived, the candidate did not.

There were more phone calls asking where the Democratic nominee was. Campaign spokesman Bill Figel couldn't exactly explain what happened but said he was sorry. The session was rescheduled. The Sun-Times is hardly alone. Last weekend, Stroger didn't show up for a scheduled meeting with Rep. Jesse Jackson.

With the candidate's own internal polls, according to sources, showing Republican Cook County Commissioner Tony Peraica pulling ahead of Stroger and with the Tribune's latest poll showing a statistical dead heat between the two, you'd think that Stroger would be feeling some heat too. And want to show voters that he's on fire with a desire to represent them. But he's not. And he never has been.

The other week, I sat down with a Stroger family friend and political loyalist who had a theory about Todd, the Reluctant Candidate. I have since heard the same story from other Stroger loyalists.

It has to do with the tragic, untimely death of Todd's older brother, Hans, from an asthma attack almost 25 years ago. Hans was 22 and had just graduated from Xavier University, his father's alma mater in New Orleans. Hans was described as a gregarious young man, outgoing, a budding politician in the mold of his successful politician father.

Years later, as John Stroger made his first run for Cook County Board president in the 1994 primary, he spoke of the pain of his son's loss. "You never think about burying one of your kids," he told a reporter. "You're never the same. It is indescribable."

Todd was 19 when his brother died. He too, in keeping with the family's tradition, became a graduate of Xavier. And went on to become a state representative, and then the alderman of his father's 8th Ward, appointed to that post in 2001 by Mayor Daley. Along the way, Todd married, had two children, a boy and girl. He named his son Hans.

Dutifully, Todd has done what children of dynasties do. He went into the family business the same way John Kennedy did after his brother Joe died. The same way Richard Daley did as he followed in his father's political footsteps. The difference is that Todd Stroger has done so with neither enthusiasm nor inspiration.

Does that mean that he's going to lose?

No. Even though Stroger last week reportedly told a roomful of North Side Democratic committeemen that he's running out of money, only has about $400,000 on hand, and needs at least $200,000 more to launch some TV ads in the final week before the election, he still has the machine if not the momentum to win this race.

Political strategist Don Rose knows just how hard it is for a Republican like Peraica to defeat a Democrat in Cook County because years ago he ran the campaign of one of the few Republicans who actually did. That was Cook County State's Attorney Bernard Carey back in 1972.

Rose said Tuesday by phone he thinks it's far harder for a Republican to do that today in Cook County. And along the lakefront wards where independent liberals are willing to cross over, Peraica's conservative stands on social issues will be an obstacle for them.

"Peraica will get other swing constituencies," said Rose, "in white ethnic wards in Chicago and in some of the near suburbs but it won't be enough without the lakefront."

Stroger family friend and strategist Ald. Bill Beavers put it more bluntly Tuesday. "Todd's gonna win," he declared. As for the notion that Stroger is just going through the motions in behalf of his stroke-ridden father, Beavers was equally blunt, saying, "That's just dead wrong."

Is it? I'm not so sure.

And neither is County Commissioner Mike Quigley, who went from a candidate for County Board president himself to a Stroger supporter. That doesn't mean he's happy with the way this campaign is going. Quigley says Stroger is like "Bambi in the land of Godzillas. I think Todd's tried harder as time went on when he saw he could lose, but fire in the belly? I think he's still going through the paces for Dad. It's extraordinarily sad to watch this."