GOP bastions under siege here - Democrats gaining in land of Hyde, Crane, poll says

GOP bastions under siege here - Democrats gaining in land of Hyde, Crane, poll says
By Bob Secter, John Biemer and Susan Kuczka
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
Published October 22, 2006

Once finely balanced between the city and the suburbs, the political scales of metropolitan Chicago have been tipping ever more Democratic, and fierce congressional races in two long-safe Republican bastions now are putting that trend to an important new test.

With 82-year-old U.S. Rep. Henry Hyde stepping aside, the west suburban 6th Congressional District seat he has been re-elected to easily since the Watergate era is now very much up for grabs, according to a new Tribune/WGN-TV poll.

In the northwest suburban 8th Congressional District, the survey found strong re-election support for freshman Democrat Melissa Bean, suggesting that her 2004 upset of 35-year Republican U.S. Rep. Phil Crane was no fluke.

If Republican leaders feel blindsided by the turn, then they would do well to pay a call to the Wheaton home of Lois and Gerald Sheridan, for years one of the GOP precinct committeemen who rallied voters for Hyde at election time.

Fed up with the Bush administration and the Republican Congress, the Sheridans say they are backing Democrat Tammy Duckworth as Hyde's replacement over Republican Peter Roskam. They say a lot of their friends and neighbors will be doing the same.

"It's the war or the deficit," Lois Sheridan said. "One of those things put them over the edge. These are die-hard, longtime Republicans, and they're switching."

Republicans have run the U.S. House for a dozen years, but a once firm grip has grown tenuous, and they head into the Nov. 7 elections holding on by their fingernails. A handful of critical contests around the nation could tip control of the chamber. Among the most closely watched of those battles are the Roskam-Duckworth faceoff and the 8th District battle between Bean, GOP challenger David McSweeney and independent candidate Bill Scheurer, who had little support, the survey found.

These are contests largely played out in leafy blocks of upper-middle-class homes, but the candidates still are speaking to very different audiences. Duckworth and Bean supporters are consumed by the war in Iraq and bread-and-butter concerns such as affordable health care, the survey shows. Illegal immigration and terrorism top the concerns of voters who back Roskam and McSweeney.

The campaigns come at a time when the Republican Party is facing an identity crisis, tilting ever more right as it struggles to satisfy a social conservative base that passionately opposes things such as gay rights, flag burning, gun control and abortion.

Those stands wear well with Southern voters but are proving a turnoff in once solid GOP areas outside Chicago and other urban centers in the North and East, said Curtis Gans, director of the Washington-based Center for the Study of the American Electorate.

"Suburbia has long been Republican but not right-wing Republican," explained Gans. "It was economic conservative Republican. I think Democratic candidates have grown in appeal as the Republicans have turned to the right."

Hyde was a renowned abortion foe in Congress, but on a range of other social issues, he and Crane often took a centrist stand. Roskam and McSweeney, by contrast, are playing to the right.

That doesn't sit right with many longtime Republicans in the districts, among them Charles Eldredge, 62, a land developer from tiny Richmond whose roots in McHenry County reach back six generations.

Eldredge and his kin have always been loyal Republicans. Now, he said, he's voting for Bean. "I think she supports what this district cares about, which is practical, middle-of-the-road approach to issues," Eldredge said.

In sync with district's values

Simply put, Eldredge said, Bean seems more in sync with the values of many Republicans in his circle of friends; while McSweeney, a former investment banker, opposes abortion even in cases of rape and incest, favors the teaching of "intelligent design" in public schools and would eliminate the Department of Education and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Looming large over the races in the 6th and 8th Congressional Districts is an evolving social and political dynamic that is punching gaping holes in the stereotype of bedrock suburban Republicanism.

Gone are the days when the old GOP political bosses, such as DuPage County's James "Pate" Philip, could assume newcomers from Chicago or elsewhere would transform magically into Republicans the moment they crossed the Tri-State Tollway.

The transplants now flooding into the sprawling subdivisions are no longer overwhelmingly white, and they are as likely to trace their roots back to Tennessee or Bangalore as Chicago. Many probably have never heard of Philip, the former Republican leader of the Illinois Senate.

Hyde's 6th district sits mostly in DuPage County, which the GOP establishment is fond of calling "America's most Republican County." And Crane's 8th district, rambling north of Hyde's to the Wisconsin border, was thought a close second. Republican presidential candidates routinely have chalked up healthy victory margins in the districts, and Hyde and Crane usually won re-election by blowouts.

Crane's undoing two years ago was largely his own. Voters turned to Bean because they were fed up with being represented by a veteran lawmaker who increasingly seemed out of touch with the district and suffered a well-publicized alcohol problem.

Now Bean is enjoying the advantage of incumbency, which helps raise her profile and ability to raise campaign money. That, in part, can account for the survey finding Bean holding a commanding 19-point lead over McSweeney.

Despite both districts' track record of backing Republicans, the poll found party allegiance now evenly distributed among voters. In fact, more voters considered themselves to be independents than either Republicans or Democrats.

Among them is Gerald Sheridan, 75, the former GOP precinct committeeman. A lawyer who has lived in DuPage County for nearly all his life, Sheridan said he has grown thoroughly disillusioned with his old party.

"It's not just this [Roskam] race, it's been coming over a couple of years and it's mainly a matter of disaffection with the actions, the whole thrust of the national Republican scheme of things," he said. "Iraq. Health care. The deficit. ..."

Sheridan said he does not agree with everything Duckworth stands for, adding that this is "not a pro-abortion district." He knows Roskam and considers him a "smart guy" who is smoother as a candidate than the Democrat.

But Roskam has also turned to powerful special interests to help fill his campaign coffers, Sheridan said. "He won't challenge somebody like Bush, he won't ask for any accountability," Sheridan complained. "He's obligated. He could be the strongest guy in the world, but he's obligated."

Roskam may not be racking up Hyde-like support, but he still has some big cards to play against Duckworth. The GOP has a strong field organization in DuPage County to help get out the vote on Election Day, while Democrats have next to none.

A state senator from Wheaton, Roskam also has deep roots in the district. Duckworth, meanwhile, lives outside of it in Hoffman Estates, leaving her open to charges of being a carpetbagger. She is a double amputee who lost both legs while serving in the military in Iraq, and she is remaining in that home for now because it is specially equipped for the disabled. Duckworth was recruited by Democratic leaders who saw the vote-getting potential of a candidate with an inspirational personal story.

When Duckworth walks into a campaign event on her prosthetic legs, the war inevitably walks in with her.

"Tammy's a patriot," said Debra Eaton, an Elmhurst computer programmer who typically votes Republican but opposes the Iraq War. "She knows what it's like over there and she's brave enough to ask the question: `Why are we over there?' "

The changing face of the districts can be seen in many communities, but perhaps nowhere is it more evident than in Wauconda, in Lake County, where farm fields and apple orchards have given way over the last decade to sprawling new subdivisions.

Crane called Wauconda home for much of the time he served in Congress, though constituents complained they rarely saw him there. Now it's home to newcomers from far and wide. When it comes to politics, says Mayor Sal Saccomanno, they are an eclectic stew of Democrats, Republicans and independents who seem decidedly mainstream.

"This isn't a red area anymore," he said. "It's closer to purple."

bsecter@tribune.com

jbiemer@tribune.com

skuczka@tribune.com