Frank Calabrese creates maps with GIS technology that show where victories in judicial elections may be found

To say that Frank Calabrese is somewhat intense is like saying that a laser beam is a somewhat focused beam of light.

As the old expression goes, he's the kind of guy who would make coffee nervous.

So it seemed appropriate to meet him recently, as I did, at a Northwest Side Starbucks. I was on time. Frank was already ensconced at a table, typing on his laptop, waving me over before I'd gotten fully inside the store.

I was not surprised to see that he was also working on a tall cup of something while hammering on the keyboard and scanning the horizon for bloggers. I was surprised when he showed me that the cup contained hot chocolate. "I don't really like coffee," he said.

What Frank Calabrese likes is politics. To be specific, he likes political campaigning.

He's worked in all sorts of races, including aldermanic races (where he got his start, he says), the most recent mayoral race, the State's Attorney race, the Clerk of the Circuit Court race, and several judicial races. These days, he told me, he's doing a lot of research on candidates, sometimes for candidates who don't even know he's working on their behalf.

(Candidates hire someone else, Frank said, and that person enlists Frank, more or less as a subcontractor.)

Frank dropped lots of names. I didn't pick any up. That's not why I was there.

This is why I was there (click to enlarge or clarify):

Frank Calabrese has found a way, using an Excel code he's written, to meld Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology with precinct level results from the City and County election authorities to show where candidates actually received support. Frank wanted to share some of the maps he's created from recent judicial campaigns.

Each candidate is represented by a different color on the map -- but the astute reader, or at least one using a larger screen, will soon notice that some red- or green- or blue-shaded areas are darker than others. The greater a candidate's vote percentage in a given precinct, the darker the color on the map. Chicago is so Balkanized, Frank noted; nowhere else in the country can a candidate get 70% support on one block -- but only 10% on the next.

In the first map, above, showing the race for the Dooling vacancy, the slated candidate won the primary; in the map below, showing the race for the Brewer vacancy, the slated candidate came up short.

Frank noted that both slated candidates did well in African-American communities and in Evanston where, he says, the Democratic organization is still quite strong. But Tom Sianis, though victorious, did not carry many North Shore precincts beyond Evanston. Tim Leeming, who had the Tribune endorsement, won those areas. Oran Whiting, who also had the Tribune endorsement, fared much better in those North Shore areas than Sianis.

Whiting's campaign, however, fared poorly in Northwest and Southwest Side communities where many police officers and firefighters live. John Maher, an Assistant State's Attorney who prosecuted gang crimes, received his strongest support in those areas.

There were two ASA's among the four candidates for the countywide Clay vacancy. One of these, Kathaleen Lanahan, who enjoyed the Tribune's endorsement, won the race. Her colleague in the State's Attorney's Office, Michael O'Malley, carried many Northwest and Southwest Side precincts. Neither enjoyed the official endorsement of the Democratic Party:

O'Malley did not have a lot of endorsements, but he did have one from the FOP.

These maps illustrate, fairly dramatically, that the 'boosts' that some candidates seem to receive, based on their surnames, or gender, or from the Tribune endorsement are real. Calabrese acknowledged that the maps provide confirmation of what Dr. Albert Klumpp has been reporting for years.

But the maps also show that -- as many candidates have learned to their sorrow -- the endorsement of the Democratic Party is, in and of itself, no guarantee of victory in a judicial primary election.

Frank Calabrese is a young man, often (he noted) quite a bit younger than the judicial candidates with whom he consults. Mature, successful lawyers may be wary of taking the advice of someone half their age. Instead, Frank noted, judicial candidates often prefer to rely on mentors who ran successful judicial campaigns -- but the political landscape has changed with the passage of time, Frank contends. He created these maps, he told me, to illustrate this.

Certainly Frank's maps illustrate, again, that all politics is local. In Chicago, often very local.