Jim Nowlan: Democracy thrives on competition. Run for office.

Chicago Tribune

18-07-2025

Nearly half the 118 Illinois House districts were uncontested during the 2024 election. The 17 Illinois congressional districts are mostly hungry for competition in 2026. County and municipal offices across the state often go begging for officeholders.
Voters need alternatives to consider. If there are none on the ballot, interest in democracy dries up.
Run for office. You could have a ball. And even win. As I wrote in this space recently, Barack Obama might still be a community organizer, absent throwing his hat in the ring in 2004 to run as a longshot candidate for the U.S. Senate, after having been clobbered earlier in a race for the U.S. House.
The primary culprit in our absence of candidates is gerrymandering, in which the majority party draws absurd district shapes in order to protect incumbents and generate lopsided majorities. This creates a situation in which a challenge to the incumbents looks hopeless. But it isn't, always, and there are other reasons to run for office than winning.
Take my friend Charles Owens of rural Henry, Illinois. In 2002, Owens ran for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor of our state; he filed the appropriate petitions and appeared on the ballot. (Petition circulation in Illinois for the 2026 elections runs from August to December.) Owens and everyone in the party knew he had zippo chance of winning. Undaunted, Owens traveled the state to participate in the traditional candidates' meetings and rallies. At these gatherings, each candidate who qualifies for the ballot is on the stage and offered three to five minutes to say his piece.
A good Catholic social conservative, Owens devoted his remarks to his anti-abortion rights position and the plight of the homeless, the latter a subject rarely if ever on the radar screen of the GOP.
The audiences politely applauded Owens, as they did everyone else on the stage — and they heard about how he would help those among us who are struggling.
Maybe a few even learned something and were moved to act. Who knows? After all, 70,000 voted for Owens (9% of the total). The quiet, reserved Owens had a great time, enjoyed meeting hundreds of people and marveled at our big, hugely diverse state. He spent but gas money on his campaign. Recalling his bid, Owens told me later: 'I was a winner.'
Or take my case. In 1971, I was a little-noticed, 29-year-old back-bench Illinois House member. My governor, Richard Ogilvie, had promoted and enacted a new income tax, so most laughed at his reelection chances. Nobody wanted to be his lieutenant governor. Except me. I realized the House was not a career (as it shouldn't be for anyone; after all, it's public service, not personal service). So, I thought, up or out.
Ogilvie had few options, so he endorsed me. I hired a strapping friend, just back from Vietnam, to be my driver. For a year, we traveled up and down the 400 miles of Illinois, in a fire-engine red Chevy station wagon the size of a Sherman tank. We hit all the county fairs, small-town candidate nights and Latino urban neighborhoods, most too trifling for the governor's time.
We had a ball. I have friends to this day from across the Prairie State whom I met on the campaign trail half a century ago. And Ogilvie (plus Nowlan, for we were linked on the ballot) almost won. If 38,000 of the 5 million who turned out (less than 1%) had cast their ballots for us rather than our opponents, I would have become 'lite guv,' as pols call the official. From there, who knows.
Decades later, I bumped into Leo Shapiro, the pollster for our 1972 opponents. 'Jim, our tracking polls were showing that if the election had gone on for three more weeks, you would have won.' That's life.
Running for office is obviously not everybody's thing, yet there are thousands of 60-ish early retirees out there, still full of spit and vinegar, who should consider running for office. Their golf game isn't going to get much better, and they have important things to say about our city, state and nation's future.
Democracy could use you. What do you have to lose?