44th State Rep. District: Parke Out

Looks like it is finally over folks, and Terry Parke is out.

From Cook County Clerk David Orr's website:

Rep. In Gen. Assembly, 44th

2 candidates -- vote for 1

Precincts Counted: 75 of 75 (100.00%)

Candidate Votes % Fred Crespo 10198 52.39% Terry R. Parke 9269 47.61%

Alot of folks are going to be writing about Madigan's late involvement, which clearly put Crespo over the top, but Crespo wouldn't have had a shot if he hadn't done such a great job of building a coalition of women, Latinos, African Americans, Indians & Pakistanis, Koreans and Chinese and other new emigrants in the district to augment the core of labor Democrats and former city dwellers.

Parke was vulnerable because, like districts in the south and north suburbs that were once GOP strongholds and are now firmly in Democratic hands, the 44th District is no longer the homogenous, conservative monolith it once was. Times and people have changed, and Terry Parke has stubbornly (the Chicago Tribune editorial board descibes him as "arrogant") refused to change with them, unlike his neighbors to the north, Susie Bassi and Sid Mathias, his neighbors to the east, Carolyn Krause and Rosemary Mulligan, or his neighbor to the west, Ruth Munson.

Republicans will no doubt make Crespo a top target in 2008, but if Crespo can cement the coalition he has built, add to it with independents, and the national Democrats can manage to prove that they can do a better job of solving public problems than the GOP (which should not be hard to do), then the seat should be as solidly Democratic as seats in the south and north suburbs have become. The biggest risk for Crespo is overplaying to the more conservative elements in his district and fragmenting the coalition he's built, but if he stays in the mainstream of his districts values, he should be fine.