Candidates who dare to be different need a lot of stars to align before they can win public office. It's hard to say whether that could happen for Eric Wallace before November; yet the state Senate candidate has what it takes to break all kinds of stereotypes.
He's a doctorate-holding minister, a veteran and a businessman. The resident of Matteson in Chicago's south suburbs is unusual in that he's seeking office as an African-American Republican.
Wallace is challenging incumbent Democratic Sen. Maggie Crotty in the 19th Senate District, which has leaned Democratic since party leaders redrew the legislative lines in 2001.
Crotty worked with United Cerebral Palsy of Greater Chicago before she joined the legislature. She won a seat in House District 35 when Democrats swept the southwest suburbs in 1996. The district, which stretched north of her hometown of Oak Forest, leaned Republican and had a black population of less than 2 percent. The 2001 map shifted her territory in the opposite direction and elevated the black population to nearly 30 percent.
Wallace says he has an opportunity to resonate with African Americans who have always voted Democratic but now feel disenfranchised by both parties.
"I'm sure if I were a Democrat running, this would be a whole lot easier," he says. "But I still think we have a good chance to turn things around out here in the south suburbs."
Being black doesn't hurt. "The fact that I'm African American opens the door, no question. People look at me and say, 'OK, what does he have to say?'"
Being a minister helps, too. "Since a large percentage of African Americans go to church, that resonates well no matter what party I am."
This election season, Illinoisans are being asked to rethink their perceptions of political candidates who break stereotypes. GOP state Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka is Illinois' second female to run for governor. Tammy Duckworth is a wounded Iraq veteran seeking a seat in the U.S. House. And Wallace is founder of the African American Republican Council of Illinois looking to give black Republicans a voice in Springfield.
Candidates who break stereotypes could mobilize independents and other hard-to-reach segments of the electorate. But even if they beat the odds and get elected, they face the challenge of building credibility and influence in a white, male-dominated arena.
Kent Redfield, political scientist at the University of Illinois at Springfield, says neither race nor gender automatically disqualifies a person from a viable candidacy, but a lack of money and excess negative baggage can. Women candidates, in particular, continue to confront a narrow perception of who can serve in leadership.
"The assumption is you're concerned with education and health and, if you're on the national scene, that you don't have much empathy for national defense and that you may not have enough background on the fiscal side," Redfield says. "It used to be the perfect woman candidate was the widowed grandmother because she wasn't abandoning her husband or her children to run for office."
One of Topinka's problems, Redfield says, is that Illinois doesn't have a variety of role models in political leadership. The five most recent governors — Rod Blagojevich, George Ryan, Jim Edgar, Jim Thompson and Daniel Walker — are the formulaic white, male leaders.
But Topinka is not the first to try to change the equation in executive office. Dawn Clark Netsch, former Democratic state comptroller, ran against Edgar, the Republican incumbent, but lost in '94.
Duckworth, meanwhile, is a Democrat running against Republican state Sen. Peter Roskam of Wheaton for the U.S. House seat in suburban Chicago. She's breaking one stereotype as a female member of the Illinois Army National Guard and another as a veteran who spoke against the U.S. invasion of Iraq, where a helicopter accident made her a double amputee.
Candidates who break stereotypes could mobilize independents and other hard-to-reach segments of the electorate.
Illinois voters have elected atypical female candidates to Congress before. They made Carol Moseley Braun the first African-American woman in the U.S. Senate in 1992, but they didn't re-elect her in '98. She ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 but dropped out of the campaign.
Redfield says candidates who break the norm can win public office — if they don't carry negative baggage. And gender can be a plus if women have the right issue profiles.
Topinka has a grown son and is single. She's also a social and fiscal moderate.
Edgar, her honorary campaign finance chairman, says voters do have different standards when they look at a woman. They talk about her hair more than they would with a male candidate. But, he says, Topinka has potential to appeal to women voters who are more likely to be moved by such social issues as a woman's right to have an abortion.
"One of the reasons I supported her is because I thought she could do better with women voters, particularly suburban women voters," Edgar says.
It worked for Sue Caponigro. She held a sign with blue words, "Democrats for Topinka" at the State Fair's Republican Day last month. She was born and raised a Democrat in the heart of Chicago. She continued to vote blue as a single mother of two, but after retiring and living in Springfield, she became a Republican precinct committeewoman in Sangamon County just to support Topinka.
"I originally voted for Blagojevich, and now I'm doing everything I can to get him out," she said after the GOP rally. She said she likes Topinka's jobs and economic growth plan, as well as her outgoing personality.
"She's a woman's woman," Caponigro said. "OK, so she's pro-choice. So what? She speaks her mind — that's my kind of woman."
Being male doesn't guarantee a win, either, especially when the candidate seems unusual in his district or among his political peers.
Rep. Larry McKeon, a Chicago Democrat, is a success story. He's openly gay and got elected to the Illinois House from a Democratic district that has many gay constituents.
"It fits the district, but in terms of representing the district and having influence in the legislature, he's got to confront a lot of perceptions about gay people," Redfield says.
McKeon recently announced his plans to retire in 2007. During his decade in the legislature, he successfully fought for a law against discrimination based on sexual orientation.
Another norm-breaker is state Sen. James Meeks, a Chicago minister who got elected as an Independent in 2003. He has since registered as a Democrat for the November election, but he's still seen as someone willing to challenge the party when he wants something. Last spring, he threatened to run for governor as an Independent unless Blagojevich promised more money for education. He got his way.
Meeks also could be seen as someone who paved the way for candidates like Wallace.
On paper, Wallace appears to differ from many who live in the southern corner of Cook County and the northeast corner of Will County. A majority in that region voted Democratic for governor, president and U.S. senator in the past two elections.
Yet Wallace says he found pockets of black Republicans, "people who don't want to call themselves Republicans because it's become such a dirty word in the black community, so they call themselves Independents."
Potential voters often reflect the stereotypical belief about African Americans — if they vote, they're likely to vote straight down the Democratic ticket.
"We vote for the Democratic Party without looking," Wallace says. "A blind vote is political suicide. You need to know [whom] you're voting for and why you're voting for that person."
That's partially why he's running for office on the GOP ticket — "So that black folks don't feel like they're the only ones."
His one criticism of the GOP is that it overlooks Democratic districts. "They say, 'Oh, it's heavily Democratic. We can't win.' And so we don't put any money in. That's a defeatist attitude."
The state GOP has pitched in to help Wallace campaign against Crotty. State Board of Elections records show Senate Minority Leader Frank Watson of Greenville donated $5,000, and former Sen. Steve Rauschenberger of Elgin contributed $3,350. That helped Wallace raise more than $17,000 in the first half of the year, but he spent nearly all of it. He had less than $500 available at the end of June.
Crotty spent $10,000 more than her opponent and reported still having $127,402 available at the end of June. She received sizable donations, including $10,000 from the Illinois Education Association.
Crotty says her Senate district appears diverse with very different economies in the 37th and 38th House districts, but the common issues of property taxes, transportation and education funding transcend the divisions.
She adds that she has never taken her job for granted and didn't even realize the Republicans wanted her seat.
"I don't care if it's a Republican or Democratic district," she says. "I call my voters my 'Fred and Ethels.' They just go to work. They're not political. They come out and vote, but they may have never needed to call my office for anything."
"I'm hoping that Fred and Ethel will have me back."
Bethany Carson can be reached at capitolbureau@aol.com.
Illinois Issues, September 2006
