Can't fight this feeling

BY STEFANIE PERVOS | STAFF WRITER
spervos@pioneerlocal.com

Excitement and wonder top off village's 50th birthday bash, REO concert

Elk Grove Village's 50th Birthday Bash went off "without a hitch," Mayor Craig Johnson said.

Despite a slow start because of the heat, about 7,000 residents filled the stands of Haskell Memorial Stadium at Elk Grove High School by the end of Sunday evening. The celebration ended without any arrests or health problems.

More about the winners and Pam Scully's take on the event. Page 5

"It was really possibly the finest night Elk Grove has ever had," Johnson said.

Entrance to the event was free and included an REO Speedwagon concert, brownies and ice cream and a fireworks display.

Johnson kicked off the evening by thanking Elk Grove High School and District 214.

"Have you ever seen Elk Grove High School change from a football field to a concert stadium so quickly?" he said.

Over the past eight months, more than 13,000 raffle tickets for the Hometown Home Giveaway were sold at $50 each. Johnson presented 11 civic groups with a check for $11,500 each from the contest's proceeds.

The 10 finalists for the giveaway, already the winners of $1,000 cash, lined up in the order they purchased their tickets. Each had a chance to win the fully furnished, $600,000 home at 1099 Cheltenham Road, built by Centex Homes. From a fishbowl, each chose the key they hoped would open the door of the model replica of the home on stage.

Chris Soriano, assistant finance director for the village, was up first. He tried his key in the door but it did not budge. The next finalist, Kim Mills of Elk Grove Village, was also out of luck.

Emil Schiavo, a freelance photographer hired to take photos of the birthday celebration, was up next.

He chose his key and handed it over to his wife, Barb, so he could take the picture. To her complete amazement, the door opened.

"I want to know where Fire Chief Miller is with the ambulance" she said, the color drained from her face.

Emil Schiavo was shocked he had won the contest, though he had been predicting he would be the winner.

"Even though I was hopeful I'd win it, it's still a surprise to pick the key that would open the door," he said. "It's kind of strange because I had this feeling all along that I would win."

The couple has lived in Elk Grove Village since 1969 in two different Centex Homes. They are planning to move into their new dream home, at least for a short while.

Before the excitement of the giveaway died down, REO Speedwagon took the stage. Lead singer Kevin Cronin told the crowd it had been 35 years since they had last played in Elk Grove Village, and it was time to come back and educate young residents on their music.

The band rocked out to classics "Can't Fight This Feeling," "Keep On Loving You" and "Time for Me to Fly." They also introduced a few new songs of their new album, which comes out next year.

Peter Roskam, 6th District congressional hopeful and an avid REO Speedwagon fan, was invited by the mayor to attend the bash with his family.

"Hearing REO kind of takes me back," he said. "They're one of those garage bands that made it big."

Michelle Graves, another REO Speedwagon fan, has lived in Elk Grove Village for 24 years. Though she was disappointed not to have won a new home, she thought overall the 50th Birthday Bash was a success.

"I think they did a lot of planning and the mayor does a great job," she said.

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Stem-Cell Issue: Republicans' Undoing?
Disgruntled Party Moderates
Could Pose Threat in Some
Suburban Congressional Districts
By JACKIE CALMES
July 21, 2006; Page A4

ELMHURST, Ill. -- At her home in this Chicago suburb, 68-year-old Alice Doyle has a sign in her front window for the Republican candidate for governor. But on a recent morning, she joined a small group at her neighbor's house to lend support to the Democrat running for Congress in this historically Republican district.

The candidate, Tammy Duckworth, 38, is an Iraq-war veteran and double amputee. Her subject at the coffee this day is public funding for medical research using embryonic stem cells. She endorses it; her Republican rival, Peter Roskam, 44, has led the fight in the Illinois Senate against it. Not coincidentally, 600 miles away President Bush was about to cast the first veto of his presidency against a bill permitting federal funding for such research, charging that it "crosses a moral boundary" in promoting "the taking of innocent human life."

While Ms. Duckworth jumps on the issue, Mr. Roskam dodges it. "There are bigger issues going on in this campaign." says spokesman Ryan McLaughlin, declining to make the candidate available despite several requests over two days.

The Republican's reticence is understandable. While Mr. Bush's position cheers religious and social conservatives in the Republicans' base, nationwide it has alienated many moderates and has some questioning their fealty to a party increasingly defined by its cultural conservatism in emphasizing its opposition to issues such as gay marriage and abortion. "I think the Republican Party is in the Dark Ages on this," says Mrs. Doyle, a registered Republican who says she now "tends to vote Democratic."

Moreover, as the party has grown more socially conservative over the past quarter-century, the suburbs where many Republicans live have become more diverse and politically independent, marked by a mix of fiscal conservatism and social liberalism that is testing Republicans' dominance there. "Those districts aren't as reliably Republican as they were," says campaign expert Bernadette Budde of the business-backed political advocacy group BIPAC.

That, in turn, has Democrats hoping to capture some of their foes' strongholds, by picking up disgruntled Republican moderates as well as independents. Whether they do could determine if Republicans keep their majorities in Congress after November's elections.

In Missouri, the stem-cell issue is prominent in Democratic Auditor Claire McCaskill's campaign to unseat Republican U.S. Sen. Jim Talent, and a separate initiative backing research is on the ballot, stoking interest. The issue also figures in Senate races in Ohio, Arizona, Minnesota, Montana and Virginia, and in suburban House contests in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Colorado and Washington. In Missouri's Aug. 8 Republican primary, conservative Rep. Todd Akin, a foe of the stem-cell bill, is challenged by state Rep. Sherman Parker, who strongly supports expanded research and has written that such debates "will determine whether we are a party controlled by social fundamentalists."

The president's position is a minority one, even among Republicans, polls show. The question of government aid for embryonic stem-cell research is popular across all regions, ages and political groups, amid scientists' claims that the cells hold the potential for treatments or even cures for diabetes, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and Lou Gehrig's diseases, multiple sclerosis, cancer and neurological and spinal-cord injuries.

"This is a big deal in a lot of these suburban districts," says political consultant David Axelrod of Chicago, who is working for Ms. Duckworth. "Republicans are trying to satisfy their base, but I think there's some cost."

But at the National Republican Campaign Committee, spokesman Carl Forti predicts the stem-cell question will be a "nonissue" by the fall, and White House aides agree, noting that it never became the big issue in the 2004 campaign that some had forecast.

The race in the congressional district west of Chicago will be a test. For nearly 32 years its representative has been Republican Henry Hyde, nationally known as an abortion foe and a leader in the House's impeachment of Bill Clinton. While the district includes the parts of Cook County outside Chicago, its heart is affluent DuPage County, dubbed "America's Most Republican County" by the local party.

But there are signs of change. Mr. Hyde's re-election vote dropped from a typical 65% in 2002 to 56% in 2004, his lowest ever. While the first President Bush got 68% of DuPage's vote in 1988, his son won 54% in 2004.

Now 82, Mr. Hyde is retiring. Mr. Roskam, his would-be successor, is a trial lawyer who was an aide to Mr. Hyde and former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay before going to the Illinois House and then the state Senate. He's "a younger version of Henry Hyde," the DuPage Republican Party chairman, state Sen. Kirk Dillard, has said.

Mr. Dillard illustrates the way the stem-cell issue has split his party. He switched to support funding for research in the state Senate, imploring, "How can you not be for this?" In an interview, he says he was influenced by advocates from nearby Children's Memorial Hospital and a local pediatrician.

Another proponent is the Republican leader of the Illinois House, Tom Cross, a protégé and former history student of U.S. House Speaker Denny Hastert of Illinois; his 13-year-old daughter has juvenile diabetes. "Everybody knows somebody who's got some connection" to conditions that might be helped, he says. "But has it translated into people leaving the party? I haven't seen that, yet."

Just as Mr. Hyde argued in House debate that embryos are human beings -- "I myself am a 992-month-old embryo" -- Mr. Roskam likewise was passionate in successfully blocking any state funding for research in the Illinois Senate. "We are asked to pit one life against another," he said in 2004. In an interview with the Journal earlier this year, Mr. Roskam called his views "well within the mainstream" of the district. Those voters who do disagree with him, he added, support him because they share his views on keeping taxes low and other issues.

Not Mae Pearson, a 77-year-old widow at the Duckworth coffee. "I was raised Republican -- strong Republican -- and I thought it was so wonderful to move to DuPage County after I got married" in 1950, she says. "But it's just too hard to be a Republican anymore because it's not the Republican Party I grew up in."

"Embryos count, people don't," complains George Strejcek, 62. He and wife Elizabeth, 58, describe themselves as former Republicans. "Goldwater I could tolerate," he says. "But with these Republicans, they forget we live in a democracy, not a theocracy."

"They're not fiscally responsible either," his wife says.

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