To the editors:
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In her lengthy article, Levinsohn never once compares Hartigan’s positions to those of his principal opponent, Republican Jim Edgar. Instead, she judges him against an abstract standard of political correctness, as measured by complaints by named and unnamed sources from the left/liberal side of the spectrum. In every single case, Levinsohn decides that the source is wrong and Hartigan is right, leading to the conclusion that he is left enough to deserve support from left/liberals.
Over the years, I’ve voted for all kinds of unappealing Democrats, because they were less unappealing than the Republicans they were running against. If Illinois Republicans had nominated a genuine neanderthal this year–such as Steve Baer or David Duke–then I would hold my nose and vote for Hartigan. But Jim Edgar isn’t scary enough to convince me that Hartigan is truly the lesser of two evils.
Since I never support reactionaries or Republicans, my vote this year will go to James Warren, who is running for governor as a write-in candidate for the Socialist Workers Party. I don’t know much about Warren, except that he is a steel worker. I am fairly confident, however, that unlike Hartigan, he did not start his political career as an aide to Richard J. Daley, and I doubt that he has ever been a bank executive or a director of a failed savings and loan institution.
