Droves of supporters turned out on election night, filling the Renaissance Ballroom of the InterContinental Hotel on Michigan Avenue. All were hopeful for a victory for Republican Tony Peraica in his bid to become Cook County Board president.
As the night wore on, the crowd seemed to slowly reconcile itself to the dismal reality of the polls. Half of the precincts had reported their final counts in time for the 10 p.m. news, putting Democratic opponent Todd Stroger ahead of Peraica by a discouraging number. And to make matters worse, the polls also showed that Peraica was losing by an even larger margin in his bid to gain reelection as Cook County Board Commissioner in the 16th District.
At 11:30 p.m. with 62 percent of the votes counted, Peraica still trailed by 82,000 votes. Neither camp, however, was ready to declare, since many suburban Cook County votes had still not yet been counted.
Peraica, a Riverside resident, was attempting what some might call the impossible, seeking to become the first Republican President of the Cook County Board in more than 40 years.
Among those who stayed to show their support, they were unanimous in their admiration for him. Steven Johnsen, a Forest Park resident, said that Peraica’s aversion to corruption was hard to miss.
“He has worked tirelessly throughout his political career to hold government accountable,” Johnsen said. “I can think of no government body in greater need of this brand of ethics than that of the county.”
Westchester resident Terry Higgins praised Peraica as a “complete, honest, straightforward, hard-working man of the very highest standards.”
For Higgins, “Peraica is the most obvious pick for county president. He doesn’t have the baggage of Stroger, whose political loyalties seem to be everywhere, and he has a definite plan for rooting out corruption and balancing the budget.”
The Cook County budget is over $3 billion, and its health care system-one of the largest of its kind in the nation-accommodates more than 227,000 emergency room visits and 1 million visits to other clinics in a single year.
Jean Kohan, a GOP committeewoman in Chicago’s 37th Ward, and Peraica’s campaign coordinator on the city’s West Side, said that Peraica’s plan for the health care system was the only one that would eliminate duplicative administrative positions, hire more doctors, and broaden services offered to poorer residents without raising taxes.
Another supporter, Sally Baker, who owns a bed-and-breakfast in the Gold Coast neighborhood showed up by herself. A self-confessed Democrat, Baker said she voted Democratic across the ticket with the sole exception of Peraica.
“The ideas he stood for resonated with me, especially because,” unlike Stroger, she said, “he seemed poised to tackle the problems of corruption and nepotism.”
Peraica was also still holding his breath in his bid to retain his seat as Cook County commissioner for the 16th District. With 48 percent of votes counted he held a slim lead of less than 1 percent (429 votes) over Democratic challenger William Gomolinski.