Opinion: Winning Cook County Won’t Win You The Governorship

If carrying Cook County were enough to win a Democratic primary in Illinois, then Roland Burris and Paul Vallas would have been governor.

State Rep. Brandon Phelps of Harrisburg, who co-wrote the state’s conceal carry law, is accusing Gov. Pat Quinn of “politically pandering” to Cook County by adding amendments to ban firearms in taverns and limit gun owners to carrying one weapon.

Phelps not only plans to override the governor’s changes, he’s talking about the possibility of a Downstate candidate jumping into the primary to challenge Quinn and former Commerce Secretary Bill Daley. Quinn and Daley, both Chicagoans, are competing for the gun control vote in Cook County. Daley has the endorsement of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Neither spends much time Downstate. The third likely candidate, Attorney General Lisa Madigan, was the defendant in the case that led to the conceal carry ban’s invalidation by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.

"Right now, (Downstate Democrats) see the choices and it's two Chicago guys," Phelps told the Tribune. "I think there might be some other people who will get into this race."

Even though Cook County casts nearly 60 percent of the votes in Democratic primaries, in two of the last three contested governor’s races, the candidate who won Cook County lost. In 1998, Rep. Glenn Poshard finished third in Cook County, but won the nomination by running up margins of over 90 percent in Southern Illinois counties. In 2002, Rod Blagojevich finished behind Paul Vallas and Roland Burris in Cook County, but won the nomination.

Here are the results:

1998

Cook County vote: 551,519