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A quiet, stubborn Democrat starts to run early and hard in the "safe, Republican" 12th The 12th Congressional District of Illinois is a sprawling, silk stocking district that wears large workman's shoes. It consists of Lake and McHenry counties and two strongly Republican townships in Cook County. Within its borders lie the plush Chicago bedroom communities: Lake Forest, Deerfield, Highland Park, and part of Barrington; McHenry County, with its gentleman and working farmers; the re-- sort areas of western Lake County; and heavily-industrialized Waukegan and North Chicago with strong ethnic minorities. Adlai Stevenson came from the 12th, which paid him extravagant homage after death, but always voted against him when he was alive. The John Birch Society is strong here. Democratic no man's land * The powers-that-be in the Democratic Party of Illinois have always written it off. Chicago Democrats consider it "downstate," downstaters think of it as a satrapy of Daley's Chicago, and the local Democratic organization has been traditionally divided and disorganized. Neither Lake nor McHenry County has been represented by a Democrat in Congress since the Civil War. Lake County has elected one Democrat to local office in these 102 years. McHenry has remained virginally Republican. Unimpressed by the fact that the undistinguished Republican Congressman has never lost an election and that 1966 is rated by the pundits as "a bad year for the Democrats," a quiet Highland Park lawyer has moved into this unlikely arena, breathed new life into the Democratic Party, and is threatening to turn the "safe Republican" 12th into a swing district. His name is Herbert L. Stern, Jr., but he has been called "Hub" ever since he could walk. He started to run shortly after and he always runs hard. "I am not running to lose" A graduate of Phillips Andover, Yale, and Yale Law School, prosperous Chicago lawyer, and director of 7 corporations, Herbert L. Stern, Jr. seemed too big a name for such a small boy, so his father started calling him "Hub." "Hub" Stern is not the kind of a man you expect to find taking on a hopeless case at the age of 50. He doesn't regard the cause as hopeless. "During the 37 years I've lived in Lake County, there has never been a Democratic candidate for Congress whose campaign was adequately financed and thoroughly organized," he says. "Mine is. I am not running to lose." There are overtones of Roosevelt and Kennedy as he continues: "Mediocrity in government is a luxury which this country can no longer afford. How can we hope to win the hard cold war between Capitalism and Communism if those who havg benefited most from the capitalistic system remain inactive on the sidelines?" "It is time to realize that the debate over whether big government or small government is best is no longer relevant. We are a big country with big problems. What kind of government? We need a big government, we have a big government and we shall continue to have one. The question is 'What kind of a big government?' Will it be a government of amiable mediocrities with no talent beyond that of being able to get elected as the best of a sorry lot, or will it be a government of the best people this country can produce, the kind of a government that both those two great antagonists, Jefferson and Hamilton envisioned when our country was born?" "Will it be a government that reflects the will of an informed majority or an uneasy anarchy shaped by the noisiest of our multitudinous, minority pressure groups?" "One-party government inevitably spawns mediocrity and we have had oneparty government in what now comprises the 12th Congressional District for 102 years." He speaks quietly and sincerely and sounds so reasonable that even audiences that are partially hostile at first find themselves nodding agreement. "I shall serve my country, fhe 12th District, and my party--in that order."