Sen. Alan Dixon rallied local Democrats to work toward a statewide sweep of the major offices this fall Tuesday at Eduardo’s.

“We can really win the entire thing this year,” said Dixon, D-Belleville. Democratic polls show Democrats leading every statewide race by various degrees, he said.

Despite its size, “A place like DeKalb is terribly important,” Dixon said. “Whoever does well here obviously is a cinch to win (statewide).”

Dixon said he was visiting DeKalb to support the statewide candidates in general and State Sen. Pat Welch, D-Peru, in particular. “We feel very comfortable about Pat Welch’s chances at re-election,” he said.

In a speech to fellow Democrats, Dixon urged them to emphasize Republican opposition to a surtax for the rich and the 1990 Civil Rights bill during the rest of the campaign.

Dixon said the civil rights bill was the most significant piece of legislation that has come up in his time in office. He pointed out that all 55 Senate Democrats voted to override President George Bush’s veto while only 11 Republicans did. The override fell short by one vote.

The budget agreement recently arrived at was adversely affected by Bush’s stand on taxes for the rich, Dixon said.

The gas tax and cuts in Medicare were all unavoidable because the president would not accept a tax surcharge for the 60,000 millionaires in the country, he said.

“Now I can sell that in DeKalb County door-to-door,” Dixon said.

Dixon also said Bush lacked the leadership to help solve the foreign and domestic problems of the ‘90s. “I’m not sure this chief executive has a policy. I don’t know what his policy is.”

When asked about the medicine sent by France to Iraq, Dixon was annoyed but philosophical. “Medicine is the least likely thing to be successfully embargoed anyway,” he said.

“The French have not been very good allies, frankly. I wouldn’t want to depend on them,” Dixon said.