The secret taping of Harold Washington may save the taxpayers the cost of a runoff after the 3d Ward aldermanic election Tuesday.
There seems to be little doubt that Ald. Dorothy Tillman (3d) has benefited from a wave of sympathy that rolled over the black community in the wake of the controversy over the secret recording of the mayor. Political insiders believe she can ride that wave to an absolute majority vote in the special election.
Until last week, the contest had been a quiet affair–an election in the dead of winter in Washington`s political base featuring a well-known incumbent running with the mayor`s imprimatur.
James ”Skip” Burrell and his concealed microcassette tape recorder changed all that.
The disclosure of the recording of a private meeting involving Washington and Burrell, Tillman`s leading challenger, rocketed the campaign from obscurity to legend, adding another bizarre chapter to Chicago`s political history.
Suddenly, a campaign that had been virtually ignored outside the mostly poor and black 3d Ward was splashed over the front page and the 10 o`clock news.
Insiders chuckled over the revelation of the mayor`s innermost thoughts
–particularly his insulting views of Tillman–and a grand jury investigation was begun into the taping, which apparently was illegal under Illinois eavesdropping law.
Obscured in the uproar was the 3d Ward itself, a depressed South Side neighborhood ridden with crime and poverty that has been home to some of the city`s most illustrious black political leaders, including Washington and the late U.S. Rep. Ralph Metcalfe.
But the ward`s desperate problems have been given short shrift in a campaign dominated by political backbiting, reckless charges and, now, the surreptitious taping of the mayor offering inducements to Burrell to withdraw from the race.
Though Washington called Tillman ”crude” and ”abrasive” in the taped meeting, she was the favorite before the taping controversy broke, and she is the prohibitive favorite now. The mayor named Tillman to the Chicago City Council seat after Tyrone Kenner, convicted of mail fraud and bribery, was forced to quit.
Moreover, apathy was one of Tillman`s obstacles in the race, but that doesn`t seem to be the case anymore since the taping garnered such heavy attention.
The incident badly discredited Burrell, the former Kenner precinct captain who was considered the strongest of Tillman`s eight opponents.
That the tape ended up in the hands of forces of Ald. Edward Vrdolyak
(10th), the mayor`s leading political adversary, buttresses Tillman`s charge that Burrell is Vrdolyak`s candidate, a stigma that, if it sticks, is politically fatal among Chicago blacks.
The episode has left Burrell`s campaign stalled. He is under investigation by a Cook County grand jury for making the recording, the Washington administration has threatened to fire him from his Department of Sewers job and he is scorned by many blacks for embarrassing the mayor.
As a result, the belief on both sides of the political aisle is that the taping controversy will help Tillman gain the vote of 50 percent plus 1 needed to avoid a runoff.
”It elects Dorothy Tillman,” a Vrdolyak strategist said.
”I don`t see how Dorothy could lose,” said an aide to a black alderman. ”She`ll draw a big sympathy vote. And it probably buries Skip Burrell. They`re saying the mayor got set up by Burrell.”
Interviews among 3d Ward residents back up those judgments. The overwhelming majority of the people interviewed agreed that Tillman had benefited from the taping episode, and they painted Burrell as the villain.
”What did Burrell gain by this? Nothing,” said South Side resident Jean McWilson as she sought shelter from a rainstorm in a lounge on 51st Street.
”It was a private conversation and it should have stayed that way. It was a rotten thing for him to do. This is going to hurt him greatly politically.” Another aspect of the taping incident is that many political people–in the city council and the ward–agree with Washington`s private critical assessment of Tillman.
Community groups complain that she is not accessible or visible. Her council colleagues, even those allied with the mayor, say she is obnoxiously self-righteous, a strident activist who has yet to learn the kind of diplomatic give-and-take needed to be effective in a legislative body.
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”What has she done?” said an alderman in the mayor`s minority bloc.
”All she does is come in here with her fancy hats and shout. She acts like an activist, not a legislator. All of her platform is, `I support the mayor.` ”
Indeed, Tillman has tried to turn the election into a referendum on the mayor, charging that the large field of candidates is evidence that Vrdolyak and State Rep. Larry Bullock (D., Chicago), the city`s leading black anti-Washington politician, are working behind the scenes to defeat her and, by implication, the mayor.
Though Burrell is a protege of Kenner, who has close ties to Vrdolyak, there is no evidence of direct involvement by Vrdolyak in the race. Vrdolyak denies he has any connection to the contest and even Washington, in the taped conversation, said his archfoe would be ”stupid” to get involved in a race in which he has little clout.
The matter of Larry Bullock is a bit more murky. Bullock maintains that he has stayed out of the race. But Burrell, a friend of Bullock, said in the taped meeting that the state representative offered to back him if Burrell
”let him be my master.”
Tillman and others have also linked Bullock to candidate Ella Evans, a resident of the Robert Taylor Homes housing project. Several candidates, including Burrell, have come to Bullock`s office for advice, and he has not turned them away.
As for Washington, he has thrown the full force of his considerable charm and personality behind Tillman`s campaign, dismissing his tart appraisal of her shortcomings on the tape as ”B.S.” and barnstorming by Tillman`s side this last campaign weekend.
Such an effort raises the mayor`s stakes in the contest and makes a Tillman victory, especially without a runoff, important for his political prestige. But the surge of support for Washington among blacks after the disclosure of the taping indicates that he has little to worry about.
Despite the boost given Tillman by the disclosure, the other candidates in the race are hoping the controversy will aid their own efforts.
Besides Burrell, the candidate who appears to have the best chance of forcing a runoff with Tillman is Rev. Earle Sardon, a veteran civil rights activist who is well-known for his weekend food pantry.
Other candidates are P. Scott Nebille Jr., an attorney with the support of several prominent ministers; Johnnie Gettings, a project technician at AT&T with ties to the independent community; Marlene Copeland, an employee in the state`s attorney`s office with links to the nearby 11th Ward, run by the Richard Daley family; Robert Palmer, an advertising salesman; and Jackie Brown, a freelance writer.