The Pantagraph from Bloomington, Illinois • Page 7

The Sunday Pantagraph, Nov. 23, 1980 A-7 McLean County What's ahead for Democrats Barges pop up from salt mine Baldini thinks Lee should have come to the party for help and said he wanted to run early on. But it didn't happen that way, so Lee ran his own campaign. He got 14,072 votes 31 percent to Kelly's 69 percent, and nearly 500 more votes than Jimmy Carter got for president in the county. Some party people had been out working for Carter.

The Nov. 4 election also took away from Democrats in McLean County one of their sure things a seat in the Illinois House. With passage of the Legislative Cutback Amendment and with it the end to cumulative voting, only one House member will be elected from each of 118 House districts in 1982. Rep. Gerald Bradley, D-Bloom-ington, has won seven terms in the House, mostly because of the cumulative voting system under which each district has elected three representatives, and one from the minority party is virtually assured a seat.

It depends on how districts are drawn next time, but likely competition for Bradley will be Rep. Gordon Ropp, R-Normal. Ropp, a farmer and former state agriculture director, got 32 percent of the district's vote in his first run for statehouse. Bradley, then run DELCAMBRE, La. (AP) Nine of 11 barges sucked into a hole when a lake bottom collapsed into a Diamond Crystal Salt Co.

salt mine popped up like iron corks Saturday when the sea refilled Lake Peigneur, authorities reported. But the crater kept a $5 million drilling rig and a small tugboat the most expensive items that went down when the lVz-square-mile lake began pouring into the maze of mine tunnels on Thursday. Despite the potential danger of surface turmoil in the event of the collapse of dissolving mine walls and pillars, a tugboat was sent out to try to moor the barges so they would not ride free on the current. "The tug went out because the tide could bring those barges over here to ram into our bridge," explained Police Chief Jun Delcambre. However, Delcambre said the tug crew decided not to venture over the dangerous crater area of Lake Peigneur, but to lurk in the vicinity, ready to waylay barges that drift their way.

Thus far, the freak accident at the nearby Jefferson Island salt dome has a remarkable safety record. All 50 men in the mine rode a slow elevator up to safety Thursday before trapped them. Seven men on the By Bernie Schoenburg Long-time Democrats in McLean County had a lot of hope in 1978 when Steve Brienen, running on the Democratic ticket, became McLean County sheriff with 60.9 percent of the vote. He was the first Democratic sheriff county voters had elected in 68 years. The last Democrat to hold a county office had left that office in 1940.

"Brienen showed that it could be done," said John Baldini, McLean County Democratic chairman since 1968. But the hopes of Baldini and others that Democrats in overwhelmingly Republican McLean County would start to come out of the woodwork and run for offices turned mostly to memories this year. Baldini now says Brienen's win had mostly to do with "timing." For five county-wide offices up for election Nov. 4, only one Democrat, Robert Hugh Lee, 1203 Orchard Road, entered the running. Lee wrote himself for three offices in the Democratic primary, then took his legal option to run against Republican Paul Kelly in the race for circuit clerk.

"I did everything I could to him," said Baldini of Lee. John Baldini T936 luwtMi I Percy wants to talk with Kremlin officials ning for his sixth term, got 24 percent. "Gerry had just passed a farm bill," Baldini said, "that didn't make any difference to them." Bradley has predicted that with the end of cumulative voting, there may not be a Democrat willing to run for statehouse from the McLean County area in four to six years. Said Baldini: "It'd take a helluva Democratic candidate to beat a Republican candidate." Some factions of the Democratic party in the county also think it will take more work to rebuild a Democratic coalition. To some of them, that also means new leadership.

"John (Baldini) is an old-time Democrat who runs things the way they were run 30 years ago," said one party worker. "He has good intentions, but he doesn't have the organizational ability to get people working at the grass roots. It can't be a one-man show." Another Democrat, John Bernstein, 2526 Hall Court, worked on Carter's 1976 campaign, and said he offered help to a Carter campaign worker several months ago. "I never got a call from anybody," Bernard Wall sentiment sits, and he also is chairman of the board of Prairie State Bank. He has made a name for himself in international circles through writing and traveling, and was honored for a paper on human rights he did through an organization calle'd World Peace Through Law.

He is listed in a 1979 book, published in England, called "Men of Achievement." "Life has been very rewarding," he said. he said. Though he's a friend of Baldini, he also sees "a crying need for reorganization of the party" in McLean County, or "we may never elect another Democrat out of the county again." For his part, Baldini doesn't think Carter was a good party man and offered nothing to local Democrats to motivate them to work for him. Baldini also complains that things were easier in the "old days." Thirty years ago, he said, all state jobs, including those at Illinois State (Normal) University, on the highway department, at the former Illinois Soldiers' and Sailors' Children's School and elsewhere were patronage jobs. Political leaders could get their people in, and people who wanted good jobs worked on political campaigns.

Just 20 years ago, Baldini said, every county Democratic organization would raise funds for the State Central Committee, which would then distribute money to candidates who needed it most. Now, he said, most of the money is raised for single candidates instead of the party, and little support comes to candidates from the state level. And Civil Service has almost put patronage out of the political vocabulary. Baldini looks upon growth of Democratic leaders in McLean County as a difficult thing to cultivate. "I've often felt that management in all the major firms in this community are Republican oriented." People who run for office as Democrats, he said, are "not going to move up another chair" in their business.

Others dispute that impression, but it persists to Baldini. Baldini sees the greatest freedom for political activity among university employees. The tenure that faculty members receive is supposed to allow them a good deal of freedom. But times have made them more candidate-oriented that party-oriented workers, he said. "They'll get all hot and bothered about, say, a Carol Reitan (state Senate candidate in 1978) or a Paul Simon (gubernatorial candidate in 1972), but the rest of the ticket, they don't care about.

That's hurt us." Baldini, 63, of 1105 N. Prairie is a state central committeeman from the 21st Congressional District. He hasn't yet decided if he will seek to continue as county Democratic chairman when his current two-year term is up in 1982. He has his backers. "I don't see anyway that there would be a change of the guard," said Steve Skelton, a Bloom-ington lawyer who was groomed to run for state's attorney last year but dropped out to concentrate on his practice "John is somewhat of a landmark." Skelton also sees a need for increased participation in the party.

Charles Blankenship, 219 S. Orr Drive, Normal, was the only McLean County representative to serve as a Carter delegate at this summer's Democratic National Convention. He, too, is worried about the Republican sweep. "I hope maybe some of these changes get us more active," he said. Luellen Laurenti, 1407 Hanson Drive, is McLean County chairwoman, a position to which she was appointed by Baldini.

She may represent best the feeling of a party weak and somewhat divided, but still hopeful. "If Sheriff Brienen hadn't won two years ago, I guess I'd feel more pessimistic," she said. "I guess the way I'm feeling is it's not a hopeless situation. spite of the fact that the district is 2-1 Republican." yl i. 'f -J msm A MOSCOW (AP) U.S.

Sen. Charles Percy, his trip "closely coordinated" with members of Ronald Reagan's transition team, arrived here Saturday on an unofficial week-long visit and said he hopes to lay the groundwork for relations between the U.S. Senate and the Kremlin. Percy, who is expected to be the new chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he has asked for meetings with President Leonid I. Brezhnev and Foreign Minister Andrei A.

Gromyko and expected some would be set in the next few days. The Illinois Republican said he has asked for meetings with several senior Kremlin officials to discuss the SALT II treaty and other arms control issues. Percy said his trip had been "closely coordinated" with aides to the Republican President-elect but that he had also talked to President Carter, drilling rig were removed when it began to lean. The crew on a nearby drilling rig that toppled but was not swallowed up also was removed safely, oilmen said. Shallow Lake Peigneur, with an average depth of three feet, refilled overnight.

Sea water poured into it through the Delcambre Canal from the Gulf of Mexico. 12 miles south. It took nearly two days to fill the mine, which had five levels of tunnel going down to 1,800 feet. Salt mine tunnels are as wide as four-lane freeways, with ceilings 80 feet high. Miners use trucks and bulldozers.

Diamond Crystal, a St. Clair, firm, filed a damage suit against Texaco in U.S. District Court at nearby Lafayette, on Friday while its multi-million dollar mine was still rumbling and gurgling with the rush of water. It did not specify damages but called the mine a total loss. The suit said the rig drilled into the mine and led to the flooding.

Max Hebert, a spokesman for Texaco in New Orleans, said the well was drilled in the exact location provided by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permit and that Diamond Crystal was informed when the permit was issued but failed to tell Texaco that an abandoned mine shaft was 1,300 feet below. Secretary of State Edmund S. Muskie and deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher before leaving Washington. He said he would be speaking on his own, however.

"The Senate is a continuing body. I can begin these talks now on behalf of the Senate and on behalf of myself," he told reporters upon arrival from Washington. Percy said his main objective "is to begin the discussions and also to take into account that there is linkage between arms control and other activities." He mentioned the Soviet military incursion into Afghanistan and the labor unrest in Poland. Percy is the guest of U.S. Ambassador Thomas Watson Jr.

The two leave today for a sightseeing trip tu Soviet Central Asia. JL ,4 total deposit AVAILABLE S.liifction giuir.nteed hoibuik imiui 1 Jh Sears Portrait Studio BABIKS CHILDREN ADULTS FAMILY CHOUPS Time for change' swept Democrat into office ast time this offer available for delivery bv tLlirisunas mm By Bernie Schoenburg Bernard Wall was pleased when he got the Democratic nomination for McLean County state's attorney in 1936. But the outcome of the election surprised him. "I never dreamed I was going to win," he said. Well, he did win.

He turned out incumbent Republican Jesse Willis and became the county's prosecutor from 1936 to 1940. After 1940, no Democrat had been elected to countywide office in McLean County until Steve Brienen became sheriff in 1978. Some people attribute Brienen's win to timing he was an alternative to Joe Woith, who had been chief deputy during the tumultuous eight-year reign of Republican John King. Wall also attributes his win to timing. It was a good year to ride the coattails of New Deal Democrat Franklin D.

Roosevelt, who was given a second term as president to continue lifting the country out of the Depression. Wall said what Ronald Reagan did Nov. 4 happened in 1936. "A lot of people felt it was time for a change," he said. That change swept every Democrat running for McLean County offices in 1936 into power.

Wall, 73, of 56 Country Club Place, ran for re-election in 1940, but the old ways of the county had come back. He did not win re-election, but takes pride that he got more votes than any Democrat running for county office. He later was appointed as a McLean County judge to fill a vacancy when Illinois Supreme Court Justice Robert C. Underwood went to Illinois Supreme Court in 1962. Wall ran for election after compiling what he considered a good record, but he was put out by the voters.

In recent years, Wall has not been closely aligned with the party leadership, but he does care. In 1976, he was leader of a campaign committee for the unsuccessful attempt by former Normal Mayor Carol Reitan to win a seat in the Illinois Senate. What he sees in the future of the Deomocratic Party in McLean County is not bright. "I think the Democratic Party has a great risk of disintegrating considerably because there is no way they are going to be able to elect a representative (to the Illinois House)," Wall said. Wall gives Rep.

Gerald Bradley, D-Bloomington, no chance of re-election in 1982. Bradley doesn't publicly view it in such a gloomy light, but if history teaches anything, it just might take some future combination to make the "timing" right for Democrats to draw voters in McLean County. For Wall, the disappointment about losing his race for county judge has turned into many positive things. Getting out of county office allowed him freedom to become more involved with his law practice and the business world. He was elected to the board of Pabst Brewing on which he still Ml .1 Holiday Shopping Values 1 We've spent the last 8 months standard photo size frames.

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