Republican State’s Attorney candidate Tony Peraica has now given us his side to the story of the obscene, harassing phone calls made by an apparently ex-paid volunteer of his. Curiously, rather than face reporters or anyone else who, you know, might question him … he simply posted an essay to the conservative partisan blog Illinois Review. (Mr. Peraica advertises on and contributes essays to Illinois Review. Several others close to IR have also worked or volunteered for Mr. Peraica’s campaigns.)

He adds little actual explanation and really only vaguely works his way around the heart of the matter. Basically, he blames his former volunteer and even his intraparty Republican nemesis — everyone but himself — because he apparently doesn’t realize that he himself might have fed into a culture of such beyond the pale antics with his own statements and actions.

Others, however, have preempted Mr. Peraica’s spin and are looking at the bigger picture to reveal what Rich Miller calls “a disturbing pattern” from Mr. Peraica.

Indeed, the current matter (those obscene phone calls from a former staffer, made to a political opponent) actually had its seeds planted with Mr. Peraica’s last campaign in which he ran for County Board President.

Mr. Peraica, a lawyer, once defended a fellow when he was brought in on charges of slashing nuns’ tires. According to his Illinois Review soliloquy (linked above), Mr. Peraica believes in second chances (which would also explain why he’s again running for countywide office after failing miserably against a not-too-stellar opponent).

Mr. Peraica writes:

First, this individual has had a troubled past, and I once represented him in my capacity as an attorney. Afterward, he committed to cleaning up his act. I believe in second chances, so when he asked to volunteer on our campaign, I allowed him to do so. We paid him a small twice-monthly stipend as reimbursement for his mileage.

Now, according to the Sun-Times, Mr. Peraica was this man’s lawyer in 2002. But the election that same guy was put on staff for was in 2006. Four years seems like a long time in between the two events, but who knows. Let’s take Mr. Peraica at his word on that.

Thus it was that Mr. Peraica agreed to having the tire slasher he represented in court come on board as a quasi-paid volunteer (ie, campaign staffer). Records show this fellow — Fred Ichniowski — was paid at least $2600 in increments of $100-$200 every two weeks beginning on 1/20/06 and lasting until November (D2 Jan to June and D2 July to December, 2006). Mr. Peraica says this was a stipend to cover mileage. Again, we’ll have to take him at his word, but that’s an awful lot of miles.

Now, the odd thing here is that Mr. Peraica also wrote:

In October of 2006, he was unable to control his behavior and we required him to leave our campaign.

Yet, the fellow was still paid up until November 10th. Besides, the election was Nov. 7 as it was so “firing” a guy in October after he’d been with the campaign all year seems strange. Once more, we’ll have to simply take Mr. Peraica at his word. All this really means is that even before the election last November we know that Mr. Peraica saw a place in his campaign for a guy who slashes nuns’ tires. Perhaps an odd choice, but fair enough.

Then the election happened. More specifically, election night happened. Mr. Peraica got impatient as the County Clerk’s office was tabulating the votes. So in the middle of the night Mr. Peraica led a gang of supporters up and down the Loop (photo essay here, via Pioneer Press), eventually landing at the County Building where they yelled and stomped and even apparently ripped open boxes of election returns (say, isn’t that illegal). All this took place while most of the rest of us slept.

A few weeks later (after the paid volunteer was clearly no longer a paid volunteer, and before Mr. Peraica decided to run for State’s Attorney) that same tire slasher guy apparently took it upon himself to start calling Mr. Peraica’s fellow county board commissioner and fellow Republican, Liz Gorman. The guy admitted he was drunk when making calls (at 9am) and he proceeded to call Ms. Gorman names and cuss her out because she opposed some of Mr. Peraica’s interests and, apparently, because she was running for head of the Cook County GOP.

It got so bad Ms. Gorman called the cops in February.

From the Daily Southtown:

Gorman said she regularly received harassing calls from the same man but only notified police after he grew more angry and vulgar in late February, when the county board was in a budget battle and she ran for GOP chairman.

The caller said Gorman was “acting like a bitch” and “that c— better learn to work with Peraica or she’ll find herself out of a job.”

Gorman said “whenever (Peraica) and I were on opposite ends of an issue, the calls would come. (Peraica’s) name always came up.”

“Peraica thinks everything is a fight, but it takes two to fight, and I won’t be part of this,” Gorman said. “He’s tossed too many grenades. One was bound to backfire on him.”

Long story short, the Sun-Times and Daily Southtown got a hold of the story late last week and political journalist Rich Miller followed that up with a column and a blogpost of his own. Altogether, we have a pretty clear timeline:

2002: Tony Peraica represents Fred Ichniowski in court on charges that he slashed a bunch of nuns’ tires. Mr. Ichniowski had a previous charge of making harassing phone calls

Jan. 2006: Mr. Peraica hires Mr. Ichniowski as a volunteer/staffer for his county board president campaign

Oct. 2006: Mr. Peraica claims to have asked Mr. Ichniowski to leave his campaign due to “his behavior”, but continues to pay him until just after the November election

Election Night, Nov. 2006: Mr. Peraica leads a gang of staffers and volunteers in storming the county building in the wee hours of the night

Feb. 2007: Mr. Ichniowski makes obscene, harassing phone calls to Mr. Peraica’s intraparty opponent, Commissioner Liz Gorman. Ms. Gorman files a police report.

Mr. Ichniowski tells the Sun-Times, “‘Tony didn’t make me do anything.’” But, the S-T also reports that he told the police “‘Peraica encouraged his volunteers to contact [Gorman] and expressed his disapproval of her new position’ as county Republican Party chairman. Peraica, now running for state’s attorney, bitterly fought Gorman’s nomination.”

And now we have Mr. Peraica’s side which sluffs off the slashing of the nuns’ tires as a chance at redemption; completely ignores the middle of the night raging march on the county building; and also doesn’t comment at all on any role Mr. Peraica’s own words or actions may have played in this incident… In fact, most of Mr. Peraica’s “explanation” boils down to a raging slam against Ms. Gorman as he says her record “speaks for itself”.
While Rich Miller calls this “a disturbing pattern” on Mr. Peraica’s part, it seems a longer view is in order as it appears to be a disturbing pattern on the part of many conservative partisans. This blog and others have commented before on the effects over-the-top vitriol from partisans can have on “rogue” activists who skate the line between activisim and violence, sometimes committing the unthinkable.

Oklahoma City and the nation found that out when conservative activists Tim McVeigh and others took seriously the words of pundits like G. Gordon Liddy extolling listeners to use “head shots” to kill ATF agents and short-wave talker William Cooper with his anti-goverment, milita-inspired screeds.

Locally, State Sen. Dan Kotowski has also learned this lesson as his staff and volunteers (including his own mother) have received threatening calls in the wake of a series of bitterly venomous alerts from the Illinois State Rifle Association and NRA front-group National Shooting Sports Foundation.

No, Tony Peraica can’t be completely responsible for every action his staffers and volunteers make. But, he is absolutely responsible for the environment of activism that he creates through his own rhetoric and actions — positive or negative. Mr. Peraica might not have forced Mr. Ichniowski into making those obscene calls, but it is likely that (as Mr. Ichniowski himself told the police) Mr. Peraica’s encouragement was all that was needed, especially given that this happened just a few weeks after the late-night march through the Loop.

And this man wants to run for State’s Attorney?

UPDATE: Rich Miller has also received messages “about other alleged strong-arm tactics from Peraica’s campaign and at least one more nasty phone call allegedly from Ichniowski to a different committeeman.” …And the dots around Mr. Peraica become easier to connect. Why does anyone continue to associate with him, let alone the self-proclaimed “conservative crossroads” of Illinois Review which has almost literally wrapped its arms around him (and he them).