Having a good ballot name can go a long way to winning an election. This isn't just cynicism on my part. It's been borne out in recent Illinois political history. In our area a great example was the Democratic Primary for Congress in 1992 when party favorite Mark Weisbrot (now with a Washington think tank) lost to Charles Mattis. While Weisbrot won handily in Champaign County and had more money and organization, he wasn't able to offset the votes received by Mattis throughout the rest of the district. It was hard to find much of a reason for the loss other than the unCentral Illinois sound to the Weisbrot name.
More famous, and with far more impact, was the 1986 Democratic primary for Lieutenant Governor. George Sangmeister, a State Senator from Will County faced off against Lyndon LaRouche supporter Mark Fairchild. There probably wasn't a single Democratic elected official in the state that didn't support Sangmeister, to the point that the party organization never really worked the election. On election night, the wacko with the nice name, Mark Fairchild, beat Sangmeister. Adlai Stevenson, faced with the choice of being on the ticket with Fairchild or running as a third party, decided on the latter. It killed the Democrats that year as Jim Thompson crushed Stevenson.
After receiving yet another question today from a Republican about who to vote for in the race for U.S. Senator, I'm very concerned that we might end up with another Fairchild on our ticket. Steve Sauerberg is the Republican establshment choice for U.S. Senate. Andy Martin, aka Anthony Martin Trigona, is on the ballot as well, along with Mike Psak. Martin/Trigona has a long history of bizarre behavior, running as a candidate for various offices with both the Democratic and Republican parties and suing everyone in sight.
Sauerberg is relatively unknown outside of party circles. Are we setting ourselves up for the nice sounding Andy Martin to be our candidate against Dick Durbin?
