Victor De Grazia Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

A: Well, thinking it was very close. As I said before, in the last
weeks, there's no way, in a close race, there's no way of knowing. Even
if you're polling, because then turnout becomes important. For example,
T know that in 1976 all our polls showed that Walker was ahead of Howlett
and if everybody had voted, Walker would have beaten Howlett. But the
fact of the matter is, if you look at what happened in the election in
Chicago, the machine ground out their voters and elsewhere the Walker
voters stayed home, and so you never can tell. Now, we didn't know until
very late that evening that we had won for sure. I remember at one point
he went on television and threatened . . . he had called Jim Thompson and
he called everybody because we were worried about some of the wards not
coming in with their ballots, and we were worried that they were holding
back to see what was going to happen, whether or not they needed
more. . . .
Q: And Thompson at that time was U.S. attorney?
A: U.S. attorney, yes.
Q: Can you remember the moment when you finally knew that he had won the
primary?
A: Well, I have a very simple rule on that. When Dave Green tells me
that somebody has won then I believe it and if it's at six-thirty in the
evening or if it's six-thirty in the following morning, I believe him.
And when he tells me we've lost then I believe we've lost. I don't
remember when it was that Dave told me but it was . . . I guess it was
late that evening.
Q: And then what did you do? I can't believe you went home and went to
bed.
A: No, of course there were a lot of people down in the hotel ballroom,
and Dan went down there and made a victory speech. Then we went up and
had a meeting. And the meeting was to decide what should be done the
next day. And everybody expected him to have a press conference the next
day and we didn't want to do it, so instead he left that night for a
vacation and did not have a press conference.
Q:
Why didn't he want to have a press conference?
A: Well, there was one serious political problem. One . . . there were
many, (laughs) and they all revolved around what should our relationship
be with the Daley administration? But there was also another question
which was . . . Hanrahan had been nominated and what should be our
position toward Hanrahan? And in general we've always taken the position
that . . . for example, Dan said he was against slatemaking. Not against
the process of endorsement but against: the process that that was the
legal determination of the candidates. Our view, and it's the legal
view, is that the voters determine it in the primary. So now you're
faced by a candidate you find unacceptable, who's been nominated by the
people, running on your ticket. What do you do? That was a very serious
problem. We wanted time to think through what we should be doing on
those things, so we all flew off, and then we met down in Florida and
discussed the problem.