Starting about 30 years ago, I used to buy Congressional Quarterly's biennial "Politics In America" every two years, and I still have all of those books, dating from the 1990s and continuing through the 2000s. So I'll quote for you what it says, in the 1993 edition, about the Lipinski-Russo primary match of '92.
Lipinski appeared to face long odds in 1992, when redistricting forced him into a primary matchup with fellow Democrat Russo. But Lipinski ... survived one of the year's most bruising campaigns to win by a wide margin.
The new 3rd's reach into the suburbs seemed to benefit Russo, whose former district was mainly suburban. Lipinski lost some of his Chicago base. But his edge within his remaining base was huge. Lipinski, a Democratic ward committeeman, had an army of precinct workers and the support of key members of the city's Democratic organization. In addition, many of the close-in suburbs also shared the ethnic characteristics and socially conservative views of his urban turf.
Russo placed his bets on his image as a rising figure in Congress. A member of Ways and Means, Russo touted his ties to Chairman Rostenkowski. His links with the leadership enabled him to run up a substantial fundraising advantage over Lipinski. Russo also played up his role as an advocate of "Canadian-style" single-payer national health insurance plan.
But "anti-insider" sentiment was peaking at the time of Illinois' March 1992 primary. Lipinski guessed that his average-guy approach would play well against Russo's slick style.
In a campaign that became unceasingly negative on both sides, Lipinski portrayed Russo as a legislative front man for special interests. Russo cast Lipinski as a machine pol who hit up his employees for campaign contributions.
Lipinski compared his humble southwest side bungalow to Russo's large suburban home that, because of redistricting, was now outside the 3rd district. Russo revealed that Lipinski, who had called for strict limits on Japanese auto imports, owned an Italian sports car.
Organization ultimately won it for Lipinski. He swamped Russo by 25,000 votes in Chicago and ran within 3,500 votes of Russo in the suburbs. [1993 Edition of CQ's "Politics In America," pages 459-461.]
I suppose if it might be helpful, I could go to a library that has past editions of "Congressional Quarterly's Weekly Report," from 1992, and see if that magazine had any articles about that primary match. But pursuing that kind of investigation seems very speculative, and I don't think right now I'd be willing to go that far.
