Janice Hart

Hart, a political unknown, surprised the establishment when she gained the Democratic Party's nomination with support from the Lyndon LaRouche apparatus. The "favored" candidate, Aurelia Pucinski, came from a politically-prominent family and was supported by the party officials. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Adlai Stevenson III refused to run on the same slate with Hart and the LaRouche-supported candidate for Lieutenant Governor, Mark J. Fairchild. Instead, Stevenson formed the Solidarity Party and ran with Jane Spirgel as the Secretary of State nominee. Hart and Spirgel's opponent, Republican incumbent Jim Edgar, won the election by the largest margin in any state-wide election in Illinois history, with 1.574 million votes. [1] Following the election Hart defiantly said, "Victory is not defined by your petty election". (Chicago Tribune November 6, 1986)

Hart appeared in the news again when she threw a pound of raw liver, as a symbolic "pound of flesh," at the feet of Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland, to protest what she perceived as his support for the International Monetary Fund. She was fined $500 for disorderly conduct.[2]

Hart opposed Pucinski again in 1987, this time for circuit court clerk, which Pucinski won. When Hart applied for the nomination for Secretary of State again in 1990 she did not qualify due to insufficient signatures on her petition. She subsequently retired from public life.

[edit] Political significance

Hart ran on the LaRouche platform, including measures to classify AIDS as a communicable disease "and give health officials the power to test and quarantine where needed,"[3] investigation of supposed drug smuggling cartels protected by Henry Kissinger and Katharine Graham, and strong support for the Strategic Defense Initiative and nuclear power. Ever since the 1986 election the Hart candidacy has been discussed and studied by academics, and journalists. One theory is that she won the 1986 Democratic nomination over Pucinski because her name sounded less ethnic.[4] A similar theory is that she won because her name caused voters to connect her with then-prominent Democrat Gary Hart. Others blame Stevenson for his inept campaigning for the ticket and voters for their apathy. Dennis King in Lyndon LaRouche and the New American Fascism (1989) cites evidence that some of Hart's support resulted from below-the-radar organizing and campaigning in farm communities and rust belt towns. The "LaRouche for President 2004" campaign website blames Mikhail Gorbachev's influence on Walter Mondale, and thus the Democratic Party, for the harsh reaction to Hart's candidacy, while another LaRouche source blames interference from the Anti-Defamation League. [5][6]