In a rage over Todd Stroger’s crowning in place of his ailing father as the Democratic candidate for Cook County president, pundits and ordinary citizens alike have been thumping their fists on the table and declaring, “I’m voting for the other guy!” So it’s a good time to take a deep breath and learn a little about the political unknown who, if the protest vote continues to gain momentum, just might win the November general election.
According to Lipinski, Peraica was a good precinct captain–hardworking, intelligent, driven. Despite this, Lipinski never slated Peraica for office. Then again, Peraica didn’t give him much time to do so. Ever eager to get ahead, in 1992, after about four years in Lipinski’s organization, Peraica decided to run in the primary against Republican state senator Bob Raica. “I wanted to take advantage of the name confusion–you know, Peraica, Raica,” he says.
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In 1993 Peraica moved to west-suburban Riverside. In 1994 he won the Democratic nomination to run against incumbent Cook County commissioner Allen Carr, a Republican from Cicero. Peraica says he lost because the local Democrats betrayed him: “They hugged me and kissed me and took my donations, and then they supported Carr.”
Once on the county board, Peraica teamed up with reform-minded Democratic commissioners Mike Quigley, Forrest Claypool, and Larry Suffredin to demand that then president John Stroger cut the budget by consolidating services and firing patronage workers. Despite several sharp debates with Stroger, however, Peraica had a low political profile coming into this campaign season. Most attention was focused on Claypool, who was challenging Stroger in the Democratic primary. Peraica was hardly a favorite even within his own party. He barely won the March election for Republican committeeman of Lyons Township, edging out a 125-vote victory over a 28-year-old neophyte named Michael LaPidus, who was backed by several prominent Republicans–including Vrdolyak.
Peraica says he intends to focus his campaign on fiscal issues, pledging to cut the county budget and lower taxes. His first big test will be in the coming weeks, thanks to Mike Quigley’s efforts to force the county board to confront the issue of tax increment financing districts, which funnel hundreds of millions of badly needed property tax dollars away from our schools and parks. Under Quigley’s proposed ordinance (which commissioner John Daley currently has buried in the finance committee), the county would require the city to hold public hearings on any proposed TIF, explaining why it’s needed and how much it would cost taxpayers. It will be interesting to see how forcefully Peraica supports Quigley’s resolution. It’s one thing to take on targets like an embattled, aging John Stroger or his unpopular, untested son. It’s another to defy Mayor Daley and his brother.
