After Lake in the Hills Trustee Jim Kennedy knocked off Perry Moy in the 2006 District 5 county board race, it doesn’t take a soothsayer to predict that Republican county board member John Jung is the next target for the McHenry County Democratic Party.
Jung lives in Woodstock, where the district’s population base used to be before reapportionment.
Redistricting resulted in adding lots of new residents in Huntley and Lake in the Hills.
Lots of new voters.
Did I stress lots of new voters too much?
I don’t think so.
The Republicans had four incumbents in 2002.
Now the party has three.
The Democrats have Lake in the Hills Trustee Paula Yensen.
With the population center being south of Woodstock, her address is a plus.
As I have mentioned numerous times before, I believe a woman has a five percentage point advantage over a man. In 1966, I ran five percentage points behind the rest of the McHenry County Republican ticket. I can show you other races that make the point.
So, Jung’s second disadvantage is his being a man with a female opponent.
“I lost twelve pounds going door to door in my campaign,” District 5 Democratic Party county board member told last Wednesday night’s party convention.
I have never heard that Jung savors campaigning door-to-door.
If Yensen puts on such a campaign and Jung doesn’t, don’t be surprised if she wins.
And, let’s not forget the primary election results.
John Jung received 3,906. His running mate Virginia Peschke tallied 40,49.
Paula Yensen got 5,148.
If that doesn’t make Jung and his supporters nervous, I can’t imagine what would.
Now, I haven’t talked about issues.
So far, Yensen is talking about “regional issues, transportation, groundwater protection and long-range planning,” all legitimate issues, but nothing like the wedge issues of the dog pound and illegal immigration used by Kennedy against Moy.
Kennedy criticized Moy for his role in buying the insurance claims office on Route 14 at Woodstock Street in Crystal Lake for a replacement “dog pound.”
I wouldn’t bet against the Democrats being able to find a similar issue to attack Jung with.
What’s to stop a repeat of this attack:
Taxes – F
Transportation – F
Regional Planning – F
Fiscal Management – F
Also in the mix is Green Party candidate Frank Wedig.
How many Republicans, let alone independents, would grant that report card credence?
Wedig may go door-to-door. Since he lives in Woodstock, it would be more convenient for him to knock on doors there. That could result in his picking off votes that otherwise would go to Woodstock-based Republican incumbents.
And with the Northwest Herald bound and determined to get as many Democrats elected as possible (remember the endorsement of Bill Foster for congress in Republican House Speaker Denny Hastert’s district), there will probably be newspaper endorsement pieces backing up headlines like this:
The McHenry County Board:
INEFFECTIVE, INDIFFERENT AND OUT OF TOUCH…
Noticed the word on the bottom of the newspaper endorsement piece:
It says, “Change.”
Is anyone who might be on the ticket using that word this year?
Having said this, it doesn’t mean that Jung could not develop a good door knocking campaign.
Democrat County Board candidate Yensen advocated a huge income tax increase–House Bill 750–when she ran for state representative. Raising taxes could become a county board issue in November’s election, now that school boards have the authority to place a County wide referendumon the ballot for up to a 1% sales tax increase.