IL-16 UPDATED: As Catalina Lauf Becomes 2022 Political Unicorn, Disrespect to Media Published

Catalina Lauf

UPDATE 10/26/21: The Daily Herald published its story about legacy IL-16 3rd quarter fundraising Tuesday morning, including the following:

“[Catalina] Lauf…and her campaign have refused to answer questions for this story.”

It also revealed one of Congressman Adam Kinzinger’s donors is former Illinois Republican Party Chairman Pat Brady.

How the excerpt came to be in the article outlined below.

From the desk of John Lopez: Before beginning this article of observations of an online exchange on Twitter between Republican congressional candidate Catalina Lauf (R, Woodstock) and Daily Herald reporter Russell Lissau this past week, some readers may not know what a “political unicorn” is, as it’s a relative new term to describe a political candidate.

A “political unicorn” is a candidate who at the outset, didn’t appear to have a chance to win an election, but when the final ballots are counted, everything had fallen into place for them and they win.

Think Lauren Underwood’s (D, IL-14) election in 2018 to the U.S. House, as well as her narrow but successful reelection in 2020, thanks in large part to IL-14 being overrated in Underwood’s favor, keeping out-of-state money from helping nominee Jim Oberweis (R, Sugar Grove).

Think Madison Cawthorn’s (R, NC-11) or Lauren Boebert’s (R, CO-03) successful elections in 2020, or U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff (D, GA), thanks to a Libertarian candidate last November preventing then U.S. Senator David Perdue (R, GA) from achieving 50% of the vote, forcing a general election runoff Ossoff won on January 5.

Catalina Lauf’s long game she’s played since taking a big risk and launching her congressional campaign February 23 finds the Woodstock native shaping up to be a political unicorn for 2022 for the following reasons:

  • By challenging Congressman Adam Kinzinger (R, IL-16) in late February and with aggressive, though expensive high burn rate fundraising campaign against Kinzinger’s January 13 vote to impeach then President Donald Trump, Lauf’s raised over $791K cash through September 30, and is on track to raise $1 million by the end of 2021, starting 2022 as a “proven fundraiser” attractive for super PAC investments (her likely banking less than $300K by year end inconsequential at this point) plus significant earned media in the past 7 1/2 months
  • Census data delay preventing new congressional districts from being drawn allowing Lauf to run an exclusive fundraising campaign, postponing retail campaigning including multiple parade and other retail campaign appearances over the spring and summer
  • Illinois Democrats appear unable to stretch heavily Democratic congressional districts from Cook County to envelope all of McHenry County, which will result in Lauf’s home with her parents in Woodstock being drawn into a competitive district, either IL-14 and a possible general matchup with Lauren Underwood (D, Naperville per the first official draft map), IL-11 and a possible matchup with Congressman Bill Foster (D, Naperville) or possibly IL-06, for possible matchup against Congressman Sean Casten (D, Downers Grove)
  • Kinzinger being drawn into a different congressional district removing Lauf from facing Kinzinger in the primary, and his $3.3 million and counting in cash-on-hand but being able to fundraise off of Kinzinger for nearly a year
  • Kinzinger making an ass out of himself (in more ways than siding with Democrats) with his crocodile tears performance on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D, CA-12) select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol Riots
  • Most other potential Republican candidates for Congress in northern Illinois either don’t have the resources to mount a credible campaign, or simply are not interested in running in 2022

With political unicorn context aside, Lauf did an immature thing and was, in my honest opinion very disrespectful being condescending in answering questions posed through Twitter by Russell Lissau, senior writer for Daily Herald Media Group. Here’s the quote tweet from Lauf this past Tuesday, October 19 of Lissau’s initial tweet when he was seeking an answer to questions:

So Lauf, instead of taking this kind of question private, or having a member of her campaign team respond to Lissau privately, takes a screenshot from an email nearly 3 months old, and shares her brow beating a veteran reporter with her 158K Twitter followers, and made an absurd public warning to Lissau about local reporters “carrying water” for Kinzinger.

Nick Grigoletti

Clearly Lauf missed Lissau’s coverage of the IL-14 general election last year when he publicly on video called out Congresswoman Lauren Underwood for stating an untruth that three of her bills had been signed into law by President Trump.

The “Nick” Lauf’s email screenshot refers to is Nick Grigoletti, Lauf’s campaign manager and according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings, the only member of her campaign team (thus far) based in Illinois. Grigoletti was elected as an alternate delegate for President Trump to the Republican National Convention last year from the 4th Congressional District.

He relocated to Woodstock in the past year, presumably after taking the Lauf gig.

Here are Lissau’s professional responses in Twitter since the Tuesday tweet Lauf sent:

Reasonable response and Lissau continued:

And being thorough, Lissau tweeted the next day (Wednesday):

Russell Lissau was the professional with Lauf. Sad Lauf wasn’t professional with him.

By the time Lissau’s Wednesday tweet reply was sent, Lauf was on her way to south Florida (per a Wednesday night Instagram post with location from Miami).

Through Friday, Lissau’s Daily Herald story on the IL-16 race he was seeking questions from Lauf has not been published.

As I said above, Lauf’s condescending public tweet to Lissau betrayed the 28 year old still has some growing up to do, particularly when treating people with respect.

Lauf clearly has a communication issue on her campaign team, as I know first hand how unreliable Lauf’s campaign manager has been since early to mid August, as I included in notes on McHenry County Blog articles, he doesn’t follow-up, or at very least shows respect to let someone know, as a professional, they cannot respond to questions and provide an estimate when they’ll answer.

Jim Oberweis

Remembering the 7-person Republican primary field in IL-14 in 2020, many write-off Jim Oberweis’ winning as simply the result of the crowded field or Oberweis’ name ID.

Putting all of the jokes commenters say of Oberweis aside, the explanations oversimplify the truth.

A reason Oberweis had name ID, and was backed by nearly all of the local Republican leadership in IL-14, was because over the years, Oberweis showed respect to people, and he knew how to treat people with respect. I know first hand about this, as he has treated me with respect, even when questioning coverage I’ve written he doesn’t agree.

Oberweis’ respectful treatment of people is a good reason why Oberweis hasn’t lost a primary since 2006, winning nominations/elections over the likes of then state Senator Chris Lauzen (IL-14 2008), future Kane County Board Chair Corinne Pierog (state senate 2012, 2016), state Senator Sue Rezin (2020) and Lauf.

Oberweis could probably win a primary for U.S. House next year if he were to run.

Hopefully, Lauf and her campaign team will solve the communications issues with mainstream media, and anyone else asking questions, in the near future. If Lauf and her team continue to show disrespect they’ve done over recent months, one can imagine should Lauf win election to Congress, either next year or further in the future, what a Congresswoman Lauf will be like with constituent services.


Comments

IL-16 UPDATED: As Catalina Lauf Becomes 2022 Political Unicorn, Disrespect to Media Published — 9 Comments

  1. LOL John. The fake nurse beat Oberweis in the middle of the night while Oberweis was ahead as we all went to bed.

    irio could help explain this with a forensic audit.

    He has no intention of doing so since he is continually re-elected with the cheat machines he claims are pure as the d

    Someone please convince me otherwise.

  2. I won’t buy a Daily Herald.

    Not until they come in a frame like the artist Banksy used, that shreds itself, right after you buy it.

  3. I just don’t think Lauf has the experience in anything that qualifies her to hold a political seat.

    I would really like to see her accomplish something first.

    I think she has a bright future.

  4. Great critique.

    Lauf has proven she would not be a representative focused on the issues of her district.

    Rather, she wants to be Insta famous.

    Definitely campaigning for a Newsmax or Fox gig.

  5. I think she has a sim future.

    Maybe she could do well in Guatemala.

    General Efrain Rios Montt is no longer around to ‘assist’ her career in Central America, but she could try for another Sugar Daddy.

    Bye bye Catalina.

  6. hahaha, what a baffoon, what do you call disrespect ?!!! AOC or lets see how about the rest of the swamp scum up there in MY Taxed Paid House … ! the sea hag, shifty shiff, ol chuckie … disrespectful Watterssss really you don’t have a clue what unprofessionalism is!look at yourself black pot! fake chit stirrer CNN looking for help you would fit right in…

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