What a devastating headline!
It was in the Chicago Tribune in a Susan Kuczka story on Wednesday.
The internet headline is slightly less damaging:
about his professional background
This appears to be the one article the Tribune will write about the 26th district state senate race between Round Lake Mayor Bill Gentes, the subject of the headline, and Republican Dan Duffy.
That being the case, Duffy was given a chance to weigh in.
“Duffy said Gentes’ lie raises other ethical issues involving the mayor and how he has conducted business in Village Hall,” the article goes on.
Duffy points out that Gentes’ wife works for a real estate company that the village has utilized.
Given the nature of the statewide political coverage of Governor Rod Blagojevich, Governor George Ryan, etc., “pay to play” gets mentioned by Duffy.
“If we really want to clean up corruption in Springfield, then we can’t continue to elect people with shady backgrounds like Gentes,”
Duffy is quoted as saying.
I wonder what the implications would be in Springfield where pols like to say “my word is my bond?”
I remember being lied to when a Democratic Party floor leader, State Rep. Ted Lechowicz, told me he would support a junior college aid bill that would help Chicago, not to mention all of the junior colleges whose campuses were physically located in my 1970’s 33rd district (McHenry County, Elgin Community and Rock Valley). He told me he got a call from Minority Leader Clyde Choate (whose junior colleges with very, very low tuition would not win) while the committee meeting was going on and, then, refused to honor his commitment to support my bill. That’s what he told me. That was why he broke his word and voted against his district’s best interests.
Something similar happened to me in what must have been an important committee meeting, because it was also held on the House floor. I had committed to vote for some bill that now-Cook County Assessor Jim Houlihan (Governor Dan Walker’s floor leader) had requested. When I voted, I had all sorts of GOP leader types descend on my desk demanding that I change my vote.
I did.
And I have felt bad about doing so ever since.
That did not happen again…at least, if it did, I don’t have the retained feelings of guilt that I have about the Houlihan bill.
At least I learned from the experience, but I wonder if Houlihan has a memory about me similar to the one I have about Lechowicz.