campaign worker used to paint Peraica team as thugs

Cook County Commissioner Tony Peraica (R-Riverside) is running for State's Attorney.

Peraica was something of a media darling when he ran against Todd Stroger for President of the County Board. Media people liked Peraica because he was accessible, gave good quotes and reflected back the media's perception of Stroger. Peraica railed against the cronyism, corruption and incompetence.

On election night Peraica's campaign was celebrating, including drinking. Mike Manzo was at the location where the ballots were being tabulated by the Cook County Clerk. There had been a number of irregularities and Manzo witnessed a bunch of Stroger people being on the inside.

Manzo called Peraica and informed him that the campaign should get there people to come over to prevent any cheating.

Peraica marched his campaign staff, many under the influence of alcohol, to the location and they were not allowed to get the equivalent access that the Stroger campaign had.

The media saw and filmed Peraica's celebrants, including intoxicated people, marching like an angry mob. This became the defining image of the campaign: Peraica's angry mob.

The Democrats and their allies in the media are now playing-up stories that re-enforce this image. This is somewhat analogous to the media deciding Howard Dean was unhinged for opposing the Iraq War (before it was socially acceptable on the DC cocktail circuit to say the invasion was a bad idea). So, when the media got an image to match the story they already told themselves, they repeated it over and over again.

For Democrats that want to pooh-pooh Peraica, his complaints about election fraud in Cook County were quite similar to complaints Democrats were making about electronic voting in other parts of the country. The basic complaint is that the dominant party has access to the machines and the votes and if the votes were tampered with the tampering is exceedingly difficult (impossible?) to detect.

I imagine if the Peraica campaign would have had it to do over again... they would have done certain things differently.

But the image of Peraica as the leader of an angry mob is getting re-enforced by other stories now. Capitol Fax Blog (Rich Miller) tied together a couple stories under the title "More thuggery from Peraica".

There are those who say that Peraica’s infamous march to the County Building on election night last year was simply an unfortunate, isolated incident, despite the obviously stupid move of leading a drunken mob across town. But Tony apparently loves him some thugs, and likes to have them do his bidding.

I like Peraica. And the need to reform Cook County government, and especially law enforcement in Cook County, doesn't disappear because the reformers are uncouth.

I think Cook County Commissioner Liz Gorman, who is chair of the Cook County GOP, is closer to the mark on Peraica than the image the media is trying to sell.

Capitol Fax Blog quoting Daily Southtown (Steve Patterson):

“Peraica thinks everything is a fight, but it takes two to fight, and I won’t be part of this,” Gorman said. “He’s tossed too many grenades. One was bound to backfire on him.”

Peraica, and the people around him, often refer to other Republicans as venal, corrupt or incompetent.

When Peraica kicked-off his campaign for State's Attorney he had a conference call for bloggers. Someone--not me--asked a question.

Peraica starting ticking through suburban townships where he had good words for the GOP committeemen, but they he got to Proviso Township and gave a more detailed analysis of the local political landscape.

Peraica said of Michael Corrigan, the Proviso Township Assessor and GOP committeeman, that he barely shows up for his township job, how could you expect him to do any work as committeeman?

Having seen firsthand how the Cook County State's Attorney covers for local politicians not following the law, I see the need for reform. And if Peraica fails to deliver reform at State's Attorney it will be easy enough to dump him in four years.

However, Peraica seems to have trouble focusing on saying things that advance his cause of getting elected without adding gratuitous insults of others, especially local Republican officials.

Gorman may think Peraica's a jackass, but she's not hell bent on sticking it to Peraica. One Peraica campaign worker told me that when he approached Gorman--he'd known her for a long time--she got her people out to help Peraica's campaign.

My two cents is that Peraica and his staff should resist their inclinations to engage in conflict with others when it doesn't advance their interests in accomplishing something specific, like winning an election.