The Political Interest

By Michael Kramer

They are, quite obviously, well scrubbed and well off; young white men and women in suits and dresses and polished loafers and fashionable pumps. They stand silently at scattered street corners in cities like Dallas and Orlando and now Chicago. With their small, multicolored signs -- TSONGAS -- they seem a diffident rebuke to the well-oiled effort supporting Bill Clinton. "How can they compete?" asked a Clinton worker as he drove around Chicago last week. "We've got the money and endorsements. Damn, there's another one. You don't think they're having any real effect, do you?"

Yep, they are. Before this week's round of Super Tuesday contests, Paul Tsongas had spent only half a day in Illinois. But the latest polls show him within striking distance of Clinton, and his strength is not entirely inexplicable. As elsewhere, Tsongas benefits from the perception that he is a truth teller willing to inflict pain on a nation ready for castor oil. While the disadvantaged reject his message, it resonates among better-educated, higher-income whites -- the very Democrats most likely to vote on March 17. Around Chicago, Tsongas is also doing well among the white ethnics who voted for Reagan and Bush, not because he is seen as a strong leader but because Clinton is viewed as too slick. In another year, against a stronger field, Tsongas may already be history. This time, he is increasingly hailed as the only credible alternative to Clinton, and that may be enough.

For Clinton, Illinois has always been the crucial contest. He watched another Southerner do well on Super Tuesday four years ago, only to fail when the race turned north to the Rust Belt. "Al Gore didn't realize that he had to show immediate foot in the North to avoid being tagged a regional candidate," Clinton said several months ago. "I'll do well on Super Tuesday too, but Illinois is basically the ball game. If I score there, I've got the momentum to roll in the other big Northern states. Lose there and, well, let's just say it won't be pretty. Illinois is the real test."

To win Illinois, Clinton is counting on doing well in Chicago. And to do well in Chicago, Clinton is counting on the machine, or rather what's left of the Democratic organization that once ruled the city. Today there are many Democratic organizations in Chicago, and Clinton is favored by most. He won their backing because he was willing to play understudy. The pols who count in Chicago wanted Mario Cuomo. All Clinton asked was that they come his way if Cuomo chose not to run. "He gambled a bit, and it worked," says William Daley, a son of the late mayor and brother of the current one.

Clinton's new enemy is apathy. "With someone like Mondale, you had a member of the congregation," says David Axelrod, a well-regarded Chicago-based media magician advising Clinton. "Fritz knew every significant Democrat personally and helped most of them at one time or another. Then, when he needed them, they were there. Clinton's just come to town, and the organizations have a lot of local contests they consider more important than the presidency. They're ( for Clinton on paper, but the question is whether they'll work hard enough to offset a surge by someone else."

Clinton's greatest strength in Chicago is among blacks. "He talks to our concerns," says Alderman Bobby Rush. "Tsongas is too detached, too ivory tower." What ethnic whites see as weakness is viewed as almost charming by some blacks. "Life is life," says Charliemae Towbridge, who heads the Chicago police department's civilian workers' union. "There isn't any one of us who can't relate to Clinton's eye for the ladies if he's being honest with himself. That's a fact."

In theory, the Jackson Factor could be a problem for Clinton in Chicago. "It's good to have Jesse out of it this time," says Rush. "It gives us some relief, some liberation." Rush admits that Jackson "might" be tempted to endorse a candidate before the primary, but predicts he'll remain aloof rather than risk a referendum on his ability to deliver for someone other than himself.

As all politics is local, so it also reflects personal loyalties. "It's often who recruits you that determines where you go," says Sandy Thomas, the president of the Chicago Social Club, a business that organizes sporting and social events for 6,500 dues-paying members. Thomas lives in the 43rd Ward, a haven for upwardly mobile whites, whose popular alderman, Edwin Eisendrath, is a Clinton man. "Edwin asked me to sign a fund-raising letter for Clinton," says Thomas, "so of course I did." But Thomas will vote for Tsongas. As a former schoolteacher, Thomas should be attracted by Clinton's education reforms in Arkansas. But she isn't, and her inability to articulate her discomfort is typical. "There's just something about Clinton," says Thomas, 30, "and as someone disaffected with politics, I'm attracted to an anti- candidate candidate. Maybe it's a rebellion thing. Tsongas seems genuine -- and just because he's a dweeb doesn't mean he can't govern." So Thomas is raising money for Clinton and voting for Tsongas. "That's Chicago," she says. "It's kinda neat, isn't it?" And nutty too.