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Central Illinois Gazette

This will be interesting ...

Posted by: Tom Kacich

Friday, April 17, 2009 8:56 AM

Al Klein, who is the interim chair of the Champaign County Democratic Party, had planned up until sometime yesterday to hold an election Wednesday night for the new party chair and first vice chair.

Now Klein said the vote will only be for first vice chair (Urbana Mayor Laurel Prussing is his pick). That assumes that he is the chairman until next spring, when the party convention is held.

That's how he'll set up the agenda for Wednesday's meeting of precinct committeemen.

"As I started calling people, the overwhelming sense I got, and these were from people who are supporting me is, 'What do you mean we're having an election? I thought you were the chair. You stay there until the next convention. We need unity. We want to get this done expeditiously and to move on.'"

Klein said his reading of the party bylaws suggests a procedure for succession not unlike the presidential succession -- when the party chair dies, resigns or is removed, the first vice chair becomes chair until the next party convention.

It wil be interesting to see how this is accepted by the two other announced candidates for county chair -- Kevin Sandefur of Royal and Michael Richards of Champaign. Their response will determine how unified or divided the county Democrats become.

This is real "inside baseball" stuff that presumably only the hardest-core Democrats care about. But it will determine how unified the county Democrats go into next spring's primary, which already is showing potential signs of division over some statewide races.