October 23, 2010 BY CAROL MARIN Sun-Times Columnist
Gosh, who would have guessed that Hollywood funnyman Vince Vaughn would be taking this midterm election so seriously? Especially when so many voters are despondent over what they view as their dismal Nov. 2 choices.
"I'm sitting here holding Vince Vaughn's absentee voting application," laughed Chicago Board of Election spokesman Jim Allen when I called on Friday.
Vaughn, the Lake Forest native who owns a condo on the Gold Coast, was apparently so hell-bent on registering to vote in Chicago and getting his ballot in before the deadline that FedEx envelopes were flying back and forth from Hollywood to Allen's office in recent weeks.
Democrats have got to be praying that Vaughn's level of enthusiasm is catching -- and soon.
The numbers are telling a different story.
Let's look at early voting, for instance, and the fact that for the first time since its inception, the suburbs are surpassing the city in turnout. In some cases, the ratio is 3-1.
"I'm not seeing the early voting numbers pop yet," Allen said. "This will be a first if the trend continues."
With just one more week of early voting left, Cook County Clerk David Orr, a Democrat, doesn't mince words: "There is certainly a scare here for the Democrats."
For Democratic top-of-the-ticket candidates Pat Quinn for governor and Alexi Giannoulias for U.S. Senate, there has got to be real concern about mobilizing the African-American vote in Chicago, a base that they need to turn out in significant numbers.
And yet, the signs are worrisome. Though midterm elections always show a drop in voter participation from the preceding presidential election, there are 40,000 fewer registered black voters now than in the 2006 midterm.
And though the historic presidential run of Barack Obama registered new voters of all races and ethnicities in droves, producing a spike of 190,000 voters in 2008 in Chicago, that gain has nearly been erased in the current canvass. There are today almost 160,000 fewer voters than two years ago. For whatever reason -- the highly mobile young may have moved, the elderly may have died -- they're gone now.
Here's one more thing to consider. In all of Chicago's 50 wards, only two have picked up, rather than lost, registered voters since 2008. They are Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan's 13th Ward, with 584 new voters, and Ald. Ed Burke's 14th Ward, with 44 new voters. Madigan's increase speaks to disciplined organization, Burke's to a heated contest in which his state representative brother nearly lost in the last election.
In other Chicago wards, decreases range from 1,000 to 4,000 voters. Eighteen African-American wards took a big hit.
With Downstate voters expected to turn out for Republicans, and suburban women the wild card in this election, Democrats have got to deliver their base in Chicago or Quinn and Giannoulias are cooked.
Over scrambled eggs and pancakes Friday morning, Illinois' senior senator, Dick Durbin, told me, "Nobody should be surprised" at these low midterm numbers. "It happens every cycle."
But hearty breakfasts will be in order for Durbin to maintain his furious pace crisscrossing the country on behalf of endangered Democratic candidates.
Illinois, Durbin concedes, is one of three "trophy" states for the Republicans. Win it or lose it, the president will be held responsible for the outcome.
No wonder then that Obama, Durbin and every other big-name Democrat they can muster will rally the troops in Chicago on the Saturday before the election to drive their base home.
Honestly, I think they should consider calling Vince Vaughn.
Oops, unless of course, he's a Republican.
