John W. Williams, Political Science

Principia College, Elsah, IL 62028

Portions of this paper were presented at the annual meeting of the 1995 Illinois Political Science Association and printed in 1995 issue of the Illinois Political Science Review.

Students in introductory American government classes learn that political scientists explain a person's political behavior in two different ways -- as a rational calculation of interests, or as a result of culture and values. The "rational calculator" chooses how to participate in the political system, such as voting, based on some rational calculation of his or her interests. Acting similar to a person in the economic marketplace, she calculates the benefits of a particular political act, compares the benefits to the costs of the same act, and chooses to do whatever will maximize her benefits at the least cost. We know this type of behavior as "rational" or "public choice."

The other person acts on the basis of her cultural upbringing and commitment to certain values. This person does not make conscious calculations and is, in effect, not rational. Instead, she is guided by basic values or beliefs. These basic beliefs and values are learned as early as childhood through a process of political socialization. We know this behavior as socio-psychological.

The most obvious example of cost-benefit calculations versus cultural commitments is in how individuals decide how to vote. The rational voters will calculate which candidate is more likely to carry out policies that are in their interest and vote accordingly. The other voters are more likely to vote based on some non-rational though thoroughly understandable rationale, such as party identification, family tradition, or candidate personality.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the rather bizarre Illinois Democratic primary election of 1986 in light of the rational or public choice model as a vehicle for understanding what occurred. The analysis reemphasizes initial assertions that the fault sits with institutions other than the voters, especially the party and the media. The purpose of this paper is to explore rational or public choice theory and how it may help us better understand the LaRouche debacle of 1986.

On March 18, 1986, the State of Illinois held its primary elections in preparation for the November state-wide general election. Stunning the state and national Democratic parties, two followers of Lyndon LaRouche won nomination for the state's second and third highest offices. LaRouche candidate Mark J. Fairchild defeated party regular George E. Sangmeister (a state senator, later a U.S. congressman, from Mokena) for lieutenant governor and LaRouche candidate Janice Hart defeated party regular Aurelia Pucinski, a Chicago Metropolitan Sanitary District Board member and daughter of a powerful Chicago city alderman and Democratic committeeman, for Secretary of State. The results were nothing less than a stunning upset, creating chaos within the state Democratic party.

Four years earlier former U.S. Senator Adlai Stevenson, III, son of former governor and U.S. presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson, II, narrowly defeated incumbent Republican governor James Thompson. It was the closest gubernatorial race in the state's history. After a recount, Thompson was declared the winner by 5,074 votes out of 3.6 million, or one-seventh of one percent. Four years later, Thompson announced his bid for reelection to an unprecedented fourth term, seeking to become the longest tenured governor in Illinois history. The Democrats, on the other hand, saw their opportunity to turn Thompson out of office with a ticket led by Stevenson and peopled with strong party regulars. Stevenson's running mate was to be Sangmeister, "who is widely considered an intelligent and competent legislator." Although unknown downstate, Pucinski was heir to a well-known Chicago political name.

However, in one vote, the Democrats' hopes of retaking the state house were dashed. In what "could be the greatest understatement in the history of Illinois politics," Stevenson told the Illinois Chamber of Commerce, "It will take time to sort all of this out." Paul Kirk, the Democratic National Chairman, was just as direct, declaring, "Good Lord, we have a problem here." Instead of party regulars, Stevenson was saddled with two followers of the political cult of Lyndon LaRouche. He valiantly refused to run on the same ticket with the two. It was not difficult to understand why.

Lyndon LaRouche and his organization, the deceptively labeled National Democratic Policy Committee, embrace nuclear power, anti-Semitism, Star Wars, militarism, and the imposition of martial law to cope with such menaces as rock music and AIDS. Its arch villains, denounced by militant bands of airport panhandlers, include Jane Fonda, Ralph Nader, and Queen Elizabeth II. Criticism of LaRouche spans the political spectrum. U. S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan called LaRouche, "the neo-fascist, Jew-baiting, conspiratorial." According to Reader's Digest,

Janice Hart successfully attracted headlines in her own right. Less than two months after the primary, a Cook County circuit judge issued an arrest warrant for Hart when she failed to appear for a hearing on a 1985 disorderly conduct charge. Later that summer, Hart was fined $500 for presenting a slab of raw liver to the Roman Catholic archbishop of Milwaukee. She claimed it was to protest the archbishop's support of the International Monetary Fund.

The Illinois Democratic Party was effectively neutered in the 1986 general election. Stevenson eventually ran and lost on the Solidarity Party ticket. Jim Thompson went on to unprecedented victory.

Analysts offered a number of reasons for the outcome of the March primary. Almost all of them started with the complacency of the Democratic Party. The New York Times noted the indifference among the established politicians. For example, Sen. Moynihan declared: "The level of political literacy among the New York Democratic leaders was so low that no one understood who the LaRouchies were." One columnist wrote:

Another commentator noted the complacency of the candidates:

The LaRouchites were not passive in their campaigning, particularly in rural areas. They proved remarkably successful at winning spots on ballots and seats on local precinct committees. One reporter identified their strategy:

Amazingly, neither of the two LaRouche candidates reported spending more than several hundred dollars on their campaigns.

One of the explanations for their success was that Fairchild and Hart got their names placed at the top of the ballot in many areas. They achieved this coveted position through entirely legal means, by actively participating in the political process.

Another explanation, frequently espoused, is that voters, particularly downstate, voted for the American-sounding names of Fairchild and Hart over the obviously foreign-sounding names of Sangmeister and Pucinski. "[N]o one had heard those foreign-sounding names, and from Chicago and its collar counties to Cairo in Little Egypt, people voted for white bread and American-sounding (i.e., WASP) names, knowing absolutely nothing about the candidates."

This may have been compounded by a protest vote, particularly in the Chicago area. Pucinski's father, Chicago alderman and former U. S. Rep. Roman C. Pucinski "has long been viewed among Chicago blacks as a symbol of white ethnic resistance to civil rights demands, and among downstate Democrats as a symbol of the Cook County Democratic machine."

The media has received its share of the blame for failing to publicize the issues and quirks of the primary. "[T]he news media failed to grasp the weird ideology of the LaRouchies or warn the voters about their strength."

The bottom line, among commentators, was voter ignorance and apathy. One editorial stated:

If voters are as rational as some political scientists believe, how could this have happened? If, on the other hand, voters act on cultural factors, how could this have happened? Certainly the citizenry did not seriously see LaRouchites as acceptable leaders. The sound drubbing of both "Democratic" tickets -- LaRouchite and Solidarity Party -- by Thompson, who had barely won reelection four years earlier, indicates that the people of Illinois were not fond of the LaRouche ticket.

A New York Times/CBS poll taken days after the primary found only one percent of the public had a favorable opinion of LaRouche and his politics. Twenty percent had an unfavorable view, finding LaRouche extremist or radical. Perhaps most telling though were the 79 percent that had no opinion. Behind this statistic may be a "rational" explanation for the results of the 1986 primary. The apathy of the voters was evident in the low voter turnout. Less than half of those who voted in the last gubernatorial race, around 1.66 million, voted in the 1984 Illinois primary. Only half that number, under a million, voted in the 1986 primary.

Anthony Downs is one of the fathers of the "rational choice," "public choice," or "social choice" approach to explaining political behavior. He believes in the rationality of the voter, arguing that people vote on rational calculations based on a desire to maximize some set of goals or values. Rationality, to Downs, is the maximization of values.

Downs introduced his ideas in a 1957 article that presaged his book An Economic Theory of Democracy. In the article, Downs attempted to create a single general equilibrium theory of political behavior in a democracy. He looked at the actors in a democracy, particularly the political parties, as agents who "behave rationally at all times...toward its goals with a minimal use of scarce resources...actions for which marginal return exceeds marginal cost." "Rational" is synonymous with "efficient." The result was Down's "central hypothesis: political parties in a democracy formulate policy strictly as a means of gaining votes." According to Downs, the rational political party (or government, or any other actor) develops it policies in order to attract more votes. Consistent with the concept of marginal return, the party does not need to attract the "most" votes, only enough votes to win. As in the economic marketplace, the actor wants only to make sure the marginal return exceeds the marginal cost.

Downs examined the behavior of government decision-making, which is applicable to political parties, in two contexts: a hypothetical world where perfect knowledge and information is available and cost-free, and a more realistic world where knowledge is imperfect and information costly to obtain. "In a world where perfect knowledge prevails, the government gives the preferences of each citizen exactly the same weight as those of every other citizen." As a result, according to Downs, "the equality of franchise is successful as a device for distributing political power equally among citizens." Likewise, the equality of access to information could be a device for distributing political power among citizens.

Unfortunately, the human condition is quite different. Knowledge is imperfect and information can be costly to obtain. According to Downs,

This sounds like a description of the Illinois Democratic Party. If the reports are to be believed, enough voters were either tired of the Chicago machine (hence the anti-Pucinski vote) or tired of trying to second guess what the Party wanted, and voted with their "native" instincts (hence the tendency to vote for the first name on the ballot, perhaps assuming it was the Party's choice, or for the more American-sounding name). The costs of obtaining information about the LaRouchites were increased when neither the Party nor the media publicized the situation. How could we expect a rational voter, who must decide how to use scarce resources, such as time, to devote time and energy to ferreting out the LaRouchites, a task the party or the media should have done?

Downs suggested several conditions that may affect the outcome, including "persuasion," "ideologies," and "rational ignorance." As a result of imperfect knowledge (also known as ignorance), "some men are more important than others politically because they can influence more votes than they themselves can cast." Persuasion is the ability of "opinion leaders" or "opinion makers" to influence the ill-informed citizen. One of the logical results of this is the rise of "specialists in influence," also known as lobbyists and political consultants.

"Ideology" is, for Downs, a cost-effective approach to aiding the citizens in allocating their votes.

Ideology is most commonly (though perhaps inaccurately) presented by party label. Thus, in a partisan, general election, ideology is presented by party identification. Party becomes the significant cue. However, in an primary election, within a party, no such cue is available to the voter.

Except for the LaRouchites, there was no particular ideological struggle within the Illinois Democratic Party. Instead, there was the Party's choice of candidates -- Stevenson, Sangmeister, Pucinski -- and the other names on the primary ballot. As is necessary with an ideology, in order to attract the voter, the Party needed to promote its slate of candidates. It didn't.

The result of the failure of either the Party or the media to expose the renegades or promote the Party slate was a demonstration of the rationality of the ignorant voter:

On the other hand, Downs warned that a well informed citizen is not necessarily irrational. He offered four reasons "a rational man can become well informed": (1) enjoyment of being well informed for its own sake; (2) belief that the election will be close enough that "the probability of his casting the deciding vote is relatively high;" (3) desire to persuade others as an opinion-maker; or (4) desire to persuade the government as a lobbyist. Since the Party regulars did not expect the 1986 vote to be close nor were they intent on becoming "persuaders," there was little rational reason for them to become informed. Unless a voter was naturally a "newsaholic" or "newshound," it would not have been rational for the voter to become more informed than presumed necessary.

Based on Downs, it would have been irrational for the voters to become well-informed. He stated:

The Illinois voter made a rational decision in not collecting information about the candidates before voting. The Party failed to warn the voter that the marginal return (of voting for a winning Party slate) was greater than the marginal cost of learning about the names on the ballot. Downs noted, "In an imperfect world, neither the precise cost nor the precise return is usually known in advance, but decision-makers can nevertheless employ the rule...by looking at expected costs and expected returns." The Illinois Democratic Party either calculated that there was no significant risk or failed to make any calculation at all. Likewise, editors and other media decision-makers made similar calculations, impact on press coverage of the election.

Mancur Olson is another of the leaders of the public choice school. He attempts to explain the rationality of political participation. His leading work, The Logic of Collective Action, studied the rationality of non-participation in political action, especially in interest groups. One of the aspects he examined is the problem of the "free rider."

To understand the free rider, one must first understand the "collective good." A collective good, such as an improved environment, is a good that no member of the group can be prevented from enjoying. It is indivisible. A city streetlight is a classic example of a collective good. No person can be deprived of benefiting from the light. This is true even if the person does not pay any taxes. Free riders are those who reap the benefits without having to pay for them. For example, many reap the benefits of various interest groups. Even if the small business owner did not join the local chamber of commerce, she will still benefit from the chamber's lobbying activities.

The low primary turnout (as well as the low general election turnouts) could be evidence of the fact that the majority of the electorate are free riders. They receive the benefits of membership in a democracy without having to pay their "dues" -- voting. The high cost of voting is evidenced in inclement weather or inconvenient polling places or complexity in voter registration or the difficulty in obtaining useful information.

Furthermore, Illinois Democratic primary voters, especially those who cast their vote for Fairchild and Hart, may have also been semi-free riders. They voted in the expectation that a "normal" slate of Democrats, capable of defeating the Republicans, would be elected. This would have been their benefit had they paid their "dues" -- taken time to learn about the candidates, had such information been available.

To Olson, free riders are a logical consequence of collective goods. If we are rational actors, why should we join some group and pay dues if we are already enjoying and cannot be deprived of the benefits. Curiously, if everyone was so rational, there would not be any interest groups. This means that either we do not act rationally or that there are other, equally rational explanations for the existence of such a group.

Olson noted several possible explanations for why, in spite of the collective good dilemma, people rationally join interest groups, including political parties. First, the group may provide the members with some private benefits, which are denied to non-members. The private benefits could be material (discounts on merchandise and trips; special magazines, journals or newsletters; or wages and benefits in a closed union shop), "solidary" (the feeling of being "shoulder to shoulder" with like minded individuals in a political or social cause), or purposive/expressive (an avenue for expression).

Second, Olson noted that certain groups can coerce membership whether the individual wants to join or not. The closed union shop is an example of coercive membership. One of the reasons for closed shops is to prevent free riders. Right-to-work laws, on the other hand, provide free riders with access to the collective benefits of union contracts.

Third, Olson found that a member may join a group if that member is larger or more powerful than the other possible members. The member may realize that the collective good would be impossible to attain without his or her participation. For instance, the largest department store in town can hardly avoid joining the local chamber of commerce. Olson believes this may explain why the United States formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and provided its European allies with a substantially free ride.

Finally, Olson noted that a group may develop if the group is "sufficiently small." Because of the size of the group, each member's contribution is relatively important. The potential member can see that his or her contribution will enhance the total collective good available. This last alternative may explain the vigor and commitment of the LaRouche movement.

The work of Murray Edelman, although offering a non-rational explanation for certain group actions, suggests another way of looking at the apathy of the Democratic Party and the press in the Illinois primary election. Edelman wrote:

Instead of apathy, which he argued is not an observable phenomena "because it connotes an individual's mental state," Edelman examined political quiescence. Political quiescence, according to Edelman, "can be assumed to be a function either of lack of interest...or of the satisfaction of whatever interest the quiescent group may have...." The lack of interest may either be simple indifference or stem from "a sense of futility about the practical prospects of securing obviously desirable change."

The Illinois Democrats were certainly not quiescent in their desire to recapture the Illinois state house. However, the party was quiescent when it came to capturing its own destiny. Dave Drucker, an Illinois Democratic Party press secretary, acknowledged, "Clearly, their [NDPC's] strategy is to move into areas where Democrats are abdicating. It is embarrassing, and I'm leery that lightning may strike." The press did not see this as a story prior to the primary.

Edelman suggested grounds for quiescence: indifference, futility, or satisfaction. Since the Party was unaware of what was about to befall them, it certainly were not quiescent out of futility. However, the Party leadership did little, if anything, to mobilize the grassroots. This may have been the result of simple indifference or, more likely, satisfaction with having achieved their immediate interest -- beginning to mount what would likely be a successful campaign against the Republicans.

Edelman indicated that political quiescence may explain failures such as this. He wrote:

One can easily rewrite Edelman to read:

James Q. Wilson organizes the costs and benefits of proposed policies into his own "simple theory of politics." His theory is based on the distribution of the costs and the benefits of a policy. Costs and benefits may be widely distributed -- many, most or all of the citizens either shoulder the cost of the policy or reap its benefits. Or, costs and benefits may be narrowly concentrated -- whether the costs or benefits accrue to a relatively small number or citizens or to some identifiable group.

Wilson identifies four possible combinations in the perceived distribution of costs and benefits:

Two of these combinations or "politics" are relevant to the LaRouche upset in Illinois. The first possibility, majoritarian politics, usually depends, "not on the pulling and hauling among interest groups, but on appealing successfully to popular majorities." The issues of social security, crime prevention and national defense are examples of majoritarian politics. In explaining this type of politics, Wilson combines the free rider problem identified by Olson with Down's rationally ignorant voter:

The Illinois voters were free riders in the primary election and, since the "issues" were not highly visible, they were rationally ignorant. This means that another of Wilson's "politics" was probably underway.

Wilson's description of client or clientele politics, as evidenced by pork barrel projects, American farm policy and the merchant marine, sounds just like the LaRouche victory:

Wilson's approach looks at material as opposed to ideological interests. However, by applying Wilson's "client politics" analysis to the Democratic primary, one can easily see the cumulative impact of Down's rationally ignorant voter, Olson's free rider, and Edelman's politically quiescent group.

The 1986 LaRouche challenge was not the last threat to the Illinois Democratic Party. As noted in the opening of this paper, Adlai Stevenson, III, came within 5,000 votes of unseating incumbent Republican James Thompson in 1982. The statewide Democratic slate did not face a LaRouche challenge in the spring of 1982. The ease of the slate's primary victory and the narrowness of the general election may have lulled the party and the press into electoral complacency. LaRouche activists repeatedly challenged the party in subsequent primaries.

Year Republican Democrat Expected Level LaRouche Demo. LaRouche

(* = incumbent) of Electoral challenge Party success

Competition: to ticket strategy

General Primary

1982 Thompson* Stevenson high low no none no

1986 Thompson* Stevenson high low yes none yes

1990 Edgar Hartigan high low yes legal no

1994 Edgar* Netsch high high** yes media no

(**Burris, Netsch, Phelan)

The last four Illinois gubernatorial races have remarkable similarities. First, the Republican Party has been the dominant party in the executive branch, with the Republican candidate being the incumbent in three of the four elections. Second, all four races began as highly competitive races, with pundits refusing to make early predictions on outcomes. Third, until the 1994 primary, the Democratic primaries were not heavily contested, at least at the top of the ticket.

In 1982, the Democrats came within 5,000 votes of unseating Jim Thompson. They faced little challenge in the primary and entered the election with unity.

In 1986, the Democrats expected to unseat Thompson, and expected an easy primary. The LaRouche debacle changed the nature of the party and the election, changing an expected Republican defeat into a near landslide.

In 1990, the Democrats were prepared for a LaRouche challenge. The party contested the LaRouche petitions and, finding them flawed, the court barred the LaRouche candidates. The party rallied behind Neil Hartigan, the former attorney general, as its candidate, who lost a fairly narrow race to Jim Edgar, the former secretary of state.

In 1994, the Democrats expected another LaRouche challenge. However, they also expected that a legal challenge to candidate petitions would probably fail and they decided against a legal challenge. Instead, the party focused on a public information campaign to educate party voters. Party spokesmen and press releases repeated hammered the message of who was and who was not a "LaRouche candidate." Some Democratic candidates for lower office specifically campaigned as not being a LaRouche candidate. The LaRouche slate was also overwhelmed by a highly competitive and visible campaign at the top of the ticket, among Roland Burris, the attorney general, Dawn Clark Netsch, the comptroller, and Richard Phelan, the president of the Cook County board. As a result, the 1994 Democratic primary was a very public affair. The LaRouche slate was swamped in the polls.

In 1994 the Illinois Democratic Party lost every Constitutional office (Governor, Lt. Governor, Secretary of State, Treasurer, Comptroller), and control of both houses of the General Assembly. I believe the roots for this rout lay in the debacle of 1986.

The outcome of the 1986 Illinois Democratic primary election may have been predictable given rational behavior of the voting public. Based on Downs' rationality of voters, especially when it comes to acting on imperfect information, it is understandable that the voters would punch their ballots next to the names on the top of the ballot or the names that "sounded" familiar. To make decisions on the basis of the sound of the name or the location on the ballot is reasonable in the absence of any other information. To collect the necessary information would have been unnecessarily costly and, according to Downs, a non-rational use of the voters' time and energy. Voters displayed rational ignorance.

The Illinois Democratic Party, by failing to inform the grassroots either about the identity and credentials of "its ticket" or by warning about the lunacy of the LaRouchites, failed to reduce the cost of gathering the information. Some of the blame rests clearly with the Party. It acquiesced. Consistent with the arguments of Olson and Edelman, the LaRouchites organized and took advantage of the political quiescence of the mainstream Democratic organization. The LaRouche movement, small and highly ideologically motivated, was able to take on the large mainstream party. The party leadership, the party's slate, and the party faithful were free riders in the sense that they did not think that they had to "pay their dues." In this case, "paying their dues" meant returning to grassroots political organizing and being well-informed voters. Likewise, the candidates themselves -- the party's slate, from Stevenson on down -- failed to inform the party faithful, particularly of the dangers of voting against the party slate, as might have been evidenced by opposition to the Chicago-candidates.

The LaRouchites won the primary in an electoral version of Wilson's client politics, where a concentrated interest group won benefits (places on the Party's ticket) at the cost of a widely dispersed constituency (Democrats of Illinois). In this case, the cost was a lost general election, four more years of Big Jim Thompson and continuation of the Republican rule under Jim Edgar.

In subsequent elections of 1990 and 1994, the Illinois Democratic Party employed counterstrategies. They were able to use legal measures to keep LaRouche candidates off the ballot in 1990. Recognizing that the LaRouche slate was probably prepared for a legal challenge, which would have been costly and potentially unsuccessful, the party decided on a media strategy of educating the press, the party slate, and the voters. Voter awareness was aided greatly by the highly competitive and public nature of the primary.

LaRouche success in 1986 and failure in 1994 may have been as much a result of media coverage. In both instances, the Illinois media ignored offices and candidates below the top of the ticket, and marginalized non-mainstream candidates. As a result, in 1986, Illinois media was stunned by the LaRouche success. In 1994, the LaRouche candidates were deprived of legitimacy.

It is apparent that the press did not play its self-ordained role as watchdog in the 1986. It did not explore the issues or the candidates to a level sufficient to provide voters with less "imperfect information." This failure is drawn into sharp relief by media criticism of the voters as ignorant and apathetic. This failure leads one to wonder if the press has failed in its service to democracy, the primary rationale for its unique protections under the First Amendment. Voters are dependent, at least in part, on the press. If the press is failing to be of service to the voter while criticizing the ignorance of the voter, it is understandable that the press loses its legitimacy in the eyes of the voter. In effect, the press may be making itself irrelevant, perhaps as irrelevant as political parties. But even more concerning, the press may be depriving itself of the basis of legitimacy that accords its unique claim to the First Amendment.