Political Animals in Oak Park, 2004-05. Barack a lib? Tax assessor admits too much. Phil Rock an “icon?" The Republican poll-watcher, what's that? And Greens matter too, you know.

Village favorite Barack Obama ran for the U.S. senate in 2004 . . . In April a distributor of his flyers declined to call him liberal when questioned on the street. Depends what you mean, she said, standing at Oak Park & Lake. But another, across the street, was glad to be asked. “Oh yes,” she said and listed five or six issues to prove her point.

One was universal health care. “Hillary care?” she was asked, in reference to what Mrs. Clinton worked for in the early 90s. Yes, she said. But that flopped, she was reminded. Yes, but next time we’ll do it differently, pursue a different strategy. She was thanked with a smile for her straight talk, which is hard to find in election season.

A few days later, a dozen or more partisans waved Obama signs at the Oak Park Avenue Green Line stop. Passing cars honked. Next day, a lone Howard Dean sign-carrier stood pluckily at the same spot, unabashed, unhonked-at. And his man had energized the base. A pity.

Listening to Houlihan . . . Talking up tax matters at the Carleton Hotel a few months later, county tax assessor James M. Houlihan was lucky no one said “Hear, hear” when he said, “The only alternative [to reforming the tax code] is to throw up our hands and say it can’t be done.” He had made his points too well about tax code intractability, among other things citing Dawn Clark Netsch’s reform proposal made when she ran for governor (and lost) -- 10 years ago.

But he couldn’t say it’s hopeless, even if he thought so and even if by normal calculation it is. No political figure says that sort of thing in the presence of more than one or two listeners, and it helps if these are close relatives. Indeed, the much-heralded tax-swap idea (tax income more, property less) looks good to Netsch, now a law professor, it’s been reported, but it’s also a good way for its supporter to lose an election.

Nonetheless, Houlihan was a good presenter, as they say in the business world, and was easy to listen to even if he praised retired Sen. Phil Rock as an “icon” for his legislative civility -- “model” maybe, “icon” no -- and said such-and-such a course of action “made some stigma to [a] project.” Maybe “cast a shadow” on it?

[He was also a good prevaricator, if we are to judge by a Chi Trib 3,000+ word expose in 2017 — As assessor, James Houlihan knowingly sent out inaccurate property valuations. The future consequences could be costly — notwithstanding his “only alternative” to reforming the tax code having been to “throw up our hands and say it can’t be done,” especially if getting elected was a primary concern — he retired in 2017 after 3 elections and 18 years on the job.]

At last came election day and one man’s experience . . . I was never a teen-age werewolf, but I was a Republican poll watcher at Heritage House, the senior citizens’ residence at Lake & Lombard. Identified as such by the judge at the door, I got a pariah’s greeting from another judge, sitting at the table.

“Republican?” she expostulated. “I didn’t know there were any in Oak Park!” She was sitting next to one, a fellow judge, but apparently thought that even Republican judges were Democrats. I heard later from a northeast Oak Parker that this had been the case a few years back, Republicans were so scarce.

The expostulator got an immediate talking-to from the man at the door. She was 70-ish, trim and alert, and looked like a sturdy New Englander of the kind that colonized Chicago business in the 19th century. He too was trim and alert — at 82, I was told. He asked what the matter was with my being a Republican. No one answered, but it seemed not an idle question. The complainer desisted but shot suspicious glances now and again.

I sat down next to the long judges’ table across from one of the Republicans, a former neighbor and Beye School parent. He and I talked family and such matters. He told about returning from Viet Nam, where he had served with the 101st Airborne Division, and hearing war protestors saying bad things about him. The Swift Boat Vets of the campaign did not come up, but I guessed what he thought of the candidate about whom they complained in those battleground-state TV ads.

Mid-day, voters flocked in. There were old neighbors, the realtor who had sold our house for us, school parents from years back, and a young contemporary of our younger children. “Hi, Aaron,” I said, having heard him give his name. Wouldn’t have known him otherwise, but he knew me. We chatted briefly.

Meanwhile, the judge at the door was telling voters to “stand at attention” on their way out while he stuck an “I voted” sticker to his or her lapel. He’d done it that way for years, apparently. He did it once too often on this day, however. A woman objected not only to how he handled her ballot but how he applied the sticker.

“Don’t touch me!” she threw back at him on her way out. Wounded, he wondered what happened. A discussion ensued about touching people in 2004.

Earlier, he had spotted a ballot not yet judge-initialed and brought it to the table for marking. He looked at me and said, “It’s the first,” adding, as if to make it official: “Tell them that in Springfield.”

Some voters needed provisional ballots. Others were sent to other polling places. One or two wanted to register on the spot. One voter, her legs giving way at the door, required the bipartisan services of the Democrat watcher and me, each holding an arm, to make it to a booth-with-chair.

That Democrat, a Chicago resident, 50-ish, was standing in for a 60-ish Mister-Something whom the judge knew, apparently as a regular. “Mister” vouched for him, taking a break while the other did grunt work — what I was doing. That came down to waiting for the “tapes,” the final vote counts spit out by the ballot-swallowing machine at the door.

By 8 p.m. or so, these were ready. I got my tape, to take to a south Oak Park house party. “Mister” needed six tapes, and they had to be signed by the judges. It was a case of Republican amateur (me) and Democrat professional (him), though I assume his day job had something to do with a labor union. Pleasant fellow he, as was his 35-ish sidekick, with whom he sat in the lounge outside the polling place for a good part of the day.

I got no names of these three - “Mister,” his sidekick, or the poll watcher. But if there was something Yankee about the judge who had been astonished to see a Republican, there was something that identified them as owing much if not all, genetically speaking, to the Emerald Isle.

I left first, shaking hands with all the neighbors of the place but not kissing colleens all. This wasn’t Donegal, for one thing, and I was leaving, not arriving.

And it wasn’t necessary. The judges thanked me. And why not? I did a good job.

Reaction: A letter writer commented. “There aren’t just Republicans here, but Greens, too.” This was Bruce Samuels, treasurer of the “Greens of Oak Park.”

“Jim Bowman,” he continued, “... talks about an election judge who was surprised that there are Republicans in Oak Park. The judge in question would probably be even more surprised to find out that in the last two general elections, the Green Party received more votes in Oak Park than the Republicans did, for the 8th district State Representative seat.”

He went on to castigate “the six-term incumbent State Representative in the 8th District, who is a Democrat, [as] almost totally out of touch with most of his constituents.” He was “so bad, that in a three-party race, the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times and Pioneer Press endorsed the Green Party candidate, who is my wife...”

She [was] Julie Samuels. In the 2009 Oak Park elections, she ran for a village board seat and lost; Bruce won a library board seat.

— more to come from A Short History of Oak Park, Volume 1, 2004-2005 —