Joe Stefani.
Two years ago a 27-year old named Joe Stefani was elected to the Algonquin Library Board.
He used direct mail.
And, he knocked on a lot of doors.
In the meantime, Stefani has gotten a minor league baseball team off the ground in Rockford and served as a Republican Precinct Committeeman in Algonquin.
He has a flare for creating publicity, inviting Wisconsin Democratic Party State Senators to a Saturday, July 16th “Senatorist Night” at the Rockford Foresters’ game. (Those with union cards get in free.) A couple of the Senate Democrats may actually come. (Don’t forget that Rockford’s media market goes into Wisconsin.)
The precincts in Algonquin Township. Joe Stefani served as GOP Committeeman in Algonquin 6 on the east side of the Fox River. Click to enlarge the map.
2009 wasn’t the first time the Cary-Grove High School graduate ran for office. In 2005 he ran for the District 155 School Board, placing second in a two-way race to Karen Whitman.
Take a look at the precinct totals in Fox River Grove, where he grew up, and Cary where classmates’ families lived. They are respectable.
The baseball team is doing well and Stefani is still interested in the public arena.
Might he be a candidate for something in 2012?
How about the 52nd state representative district?
The newly-configured district has Algonquin, Cary and Fox River Grove in it. I haven’t seen a county-by-county breakdown, so I don’t know what percentages of the GOP primary vote is in Cook, Kane, Lake and McHenry Counties. But there is a lot of area located in McHenry County.
As I have mentioned previously, I expect McHenry County Board member Donna Kurtz to seek the seat, even though not a lot of her District 2 is in the district which seems to have been drawn for the deceased Mark Beaubien. Odds are good she will be the only pro-choice candidate, but, regardless, with her and her mother former State Rep. Rosemary Kurtz’ relationship with Personal PAC, she will receive the group’s endorsement and voter identification and turnout assistance.
The key to understanding the county remap alernatives below.
Lots of moneyed folk live in the Barringtons, of course.
A lot ran in the 8th congressional district Republican primary in 2010. All were fiscal conservatives and all but one was pro-life.
Someone like Stefani might decide to run for County Board in District 1.
Regardless of how which version of the map is found acceptable by the McHenry County Board, someone with a political base in both Algonquin and the Cary-Fox River Grove area would be a formidable candidate.
Especially, if he or she was willing to knock on doors.
The maps being considered by the County Board for Districts 1 and 2 are below. Stefani might be a candidate in District 1.
The original committee map and the one apparently worked out in a meeting with County Board Chairman Ken Koehler, Anna May Miller, Marc Munaretto, John Jung and Nick Provenzano which resembled a continuing game of draw poker with no new cards can be seen here.
Stefani is a rising star. I’ve been impressed with him and worked campaigns with him going back over 5 years.