Victor De Grazia Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

idea. Vic, why don't you tell them about it." So I said, "Well, I think
we ought to bring in Tom Foran as co-chairman." The room was electrified,
right? Hoge leans over to me and says, "Only you could come up with an
idea like that." (laughter) That to me was the wonderful irony of it
a1 1. (laughs)
Q: But what did Dan Walker have to say about Foran as co-chairman?
A: He didn't mind really.
Q: Did Foran actually work or was he just a figurehead?
A: Well, by that time I think everybody was a figurehead; It was so
obvious Adlai was going to win, and it really became a "how do we handle
the victory celebration?" kind of thing.
Q: -So we're into the beginning of Dan Walker's campaign. The
announcement in November 1970, is that right?
A: Yes, yes.
Q:
Tell me what you were doing once his candidacy was announced.
A: Well, I was the campaign manager. I started to organize the
campaign. Pulled together volunteers and that kind of stuff. Raise
money.
Q: It's such a unique campaign because he was bucking the incredibly
powerful Chicago regular Democratic organization. You had to think very
creatively because obviously there wasn't going to be a lot of money
right off. So you had to use what little you had as creatively as
possible. Tell me what the think sessions were like.
A: Mostly directed to trying to get the media attention. Besides being
difficult at any time, here we were so far in advance of the election
that it was almost impossible. Also, to try to use our legal resources--
we had a lot of good smart lawyer volunteers--to get them to came up with
creative ideas and lawsuits. There were a number of lawsuits then that
we filed, and won. On the primary voting for example, at that time you
could not switch over, you know, and we went into court on that one; a
couple others we did. ,
And things like that were good, not only because they accomplished
something--I believe that there weren't as many Republican crossovers as
some people say there were in that election--but, what it did was it gave
people a feeling of, well here was a campaign that had some power, it was
winning victories, it was interesting; therefore, you know, let's have
some fun, let's get involved. And when you're trying to get people
involved in politics as volunteers, you know, there' s a small group who
are ambitious, who will get involved. Then [there are] those who want to
have fun, but you got: to provide them with fun, and different people have
different ways of having fun.
When we were active in the Fifth Ward IVI [Independent Voters of
Illinois], south side IVI with Ab Mikva--it was University of Chicago