McHenry County Blog

“Teeni Weenie Bikini” was the come-on for State Rep.-to-be Barb Wheeler Saturday in Wauconda.

There may have been some at Lindy’s Landing on Bangs Lake, but they were covered up.

Some people might wonder why people running unopposed for the Illinois General Assembly need to hold fund raisers.

In the case of all Republican legislators, their leaders expect contributions that can be used elsewhere in Illinois in the goal of winning control of the chamber in question.

Wheeler, for example, is expected to pony up $5,000 a year.

Her more senior McHenry County colleague Mike Tryon is assessed $10,000 per year.

And State Senator Pam Althoff, because of her unpaid leadership position as the one who chairs the Senate caucus, needs to come up with $20,000 per year.

There were plenty of Lake County politicians. Lake County Recorder of Deeds candidate Bob Bednar was there, for instance, as were State’s Attorney candidate Mike Nerheim and County Board candidate Tom Weber.

What may have been the major political event of the run-up to the March 20th primary election took place Saturday morning at D’Anrea’s Saturday morning.

Politicians everywhere courting voters.

It was the third annual Pro-Life Unity Breakfast put on by Patriots United.

With reapportionment having sliced and diced McHenry County, three of the four United States Congressmen who have present or future ties with the area were in Crystal Lake.  Congressman Don Manzullo, the 19-year U.S Representative in whose present district the banquet hall lies, was in LaSalle County duking it out with freshman Congressman Adam Kinzinger

Making his first foray into the McHenry County part of his 6th congressional district (Algonquin Township) was Peter Roskam.

Roskam, as Deputy Whip in the House Republican Leadership, is in high demand all over the country.

It’s his job to rev up the Republican base and he did a good job of it at the sell-out crowd of almost 300 people.

With Roskam, his wife Elizabeth, and his former colleague Al Salvi, plus bride Kathy, and yours truly, it was almost old home week for conservatives elected to the Illinois House in 1992.  Only Tom and Ginny Johnson were missing.

I wish my wife had been there, but she down the road at a retreat run by the United Methodist Women of the First United Methodist Church of Crystal Lake.

Roskam was the first speaker.

“The Left wants to disarm you.

“It want’s to convince you that can’t make a difference,” Roskam told the crowd.

He pounded on President Barack Obama’s denigration of the Conscience Clause.

He cited Obama’s controversial speech at the University of Notre Dame in which Obama famously said, “We can agree around those issues of conscience.”

“He has not just moved away from (from that position), but he is “thumping us on our chests saying

‘We’re going to jab you in the chest.  What are you going to do about it?’

“That is a provocation that cannot go unanswered!”

Roskam was referring to the announcement that the Catholic Church’s hospitals, universities and other non-church institutions would have to provide birth control in their health insurance in contravention to Church teachings.

Roskam recommended a book by Britisher Paul Johnson, “A History of the American People.”

Summarizing, Roskam told of the author’s comparison of the leadership in England and America during the Revolutionary War.

American had “all of the A-Team…unbelievable gifted people.

“But was unique was their ability to come together.”

Roskam said conservatives have to be able to do that this year, because “the most important thing is the people who are in charge at the top.”

He was on a rhetorical roll.

“Our choice is to recede (or go forward).

“It’s just too big (an opportunity) to squander.  We can’t squander the Freedom God has given us…the opportunity (to keep) economic freedom, political freedom and economic opportunity.

“That’s what this crowd is all about.

“Thank you for what you’re doing in these sharp-elbowed times.

“We need you to work together (and not to be defensive about being a conservative.”

There was much more, of course.  I try to get to it in the coming days.

 

I gave you the information passed on by Presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s Illinois Chairman here.

Now, here’s what Santorum’s Illinois Coordinator Jon Zahm says,

“Leadership from the

• Romney campaign (Dan Rutherford),
• Gingrich campaign (Bruce Hansen and Nick Provenzano),
• Paul campaign (Chris Younce) and
• Santorum campaign (Al Salvi and Jon Zahm)

have agreed today to withdraw all petition challenges in Illinois against one another’s statewide and delegate petitions.

“This is a victory for unity and for allowing these volunteer driven grassroots campaigns to go forward and voters to have more choices.

“Kudos to all involved.”

Previously, Newt Gingrich’s State Coordinator Nick Provenzano left this comment:

Nick Provenzano

“The only reason why Newt’s petition signatures for Delegates and Alternate Delegates were not challenged was because they were properly filed with double the required signatures.”In almost every district we filed with 1,200 signatures only needing 600.

“The Newt petition challenge that Jon Zahm filed against us can’t be for lack of signatures.

“For Newt’s petition we collected 6,200 signatures, the minimum was 3,000 but the state would only let us file 5,000.

“So we picked the best of the best 5,000 signatures.

“We also used Newt’s home address on his statement of Candidacy which might be the basis of contention against the other Candidates.

“Nick Provenzano, State Political Director, http://www.IllinoisWithNewt.org“

Just got a call from Rick Santorum’s Illinois Chairman Al Salvi with the news that the waters have calmed in the land of Illinois Presidential sweepstakes.

The challenges that Dan Rutherford’s Mitt Romney folks filed against delegate slates with too few petition signatures will be withdrawn.

In return, the challenges filed by the Santorum forces against Mitt Romney and Ron Paul will also disappear in the minutia of history.

“Dan Rutherford and I talked this evening and agreed that it would be in the best interests of the Republican Party and the voters of the state to withdraw all challenges and to allow all candidates on the ballot,” Salvi said.

Previously Santorum and Newt Gingrich forces reached an agreement to withdraw challenges filed against each other.

No big surprise that Pro-Life supporters would be behind Presidential candidate Rick Santorum.

In the 14th Congressional District, the one that covers all of McHenry County, but Algonquin Township, here are the Delegate candidates:

• Al Salvi – Mundelein
• Kathleen R. Salvi – Mundelein
• Irene M. Napier – Crystal Lake

The Alternate Delegate candidates to the Republican National Nominating Convention follow:

• Charles G. Bacon – Island Lake
• Chad N. Koppie, Sr. – Gilberts
• Nancy Weber – St. Charles

And, here’s the first post:

Welcome to the Rick Santorum for President- Illinois Web Site

Between Christmas and January 6 we are organizing to get Rich Santorum on the Illinois primary ballot.

Our leadership team is growing daily but includes:  Honorary Co-Chairmen Al and Kathy Salvi. State Directors Penny Pullen and David Rickert and State Political Director and Spokesman Jon Zahm.

This site will be the place to go to download the Statewide petition and each of the 18 delegate and alternate petitions. The statewide petition is posted currently.

We need a minimum of 3000 of those with a maximum of 5000. Each delegate petition needs 600 valid signatures from registered voters who live within the specific Congressional District.

Any questions or media inquiries can be directed to Jon Zahm via cell phone at 630-946-8683 or e-mail jon@thegoliathslayer.com Also please visit www.ricksantorum.com for campaign news and updates.

Rick Santorum petition. This site will be updated daily and we will be announcing our District Directors and our Delegates and Alternates in the next 24-48 hours.

There are some openings so please reach out to Jon Zahm at the prior e-mail or via private Facebook message at Jon A. Zahm. There is also Santorum Illinois on Facebook.

Thank you for your interest in the surging campaign of the consistent conservative, Rick Santorum.

= = = = =

Rick Santorum and Al Salvi attended Catholic High School together in Lake County.

Wear the mask of your favorite or least favorite politician, suggests State Rep. candidate Barb Wheeler with regard to her October 22nd fund raiser hosted by her brother Al Salvi and her sister-in-law Kathy Salvi.

The event will be held at JJ Twigs Pizza & Pub at 1200 North Main Street in Wauconda.

The date is October 22nd.

The event is being billed as a

Mask-or-Aid

No specific donation is requested.

It appears to be a “give what you can” event.

It should be interesting to see what Lake County politicians attend.

It seems I found the Thursday before last’s editorial in the Chicago Tribune too boring to read carefully.

But the Idaho Statesman reminded me of one interesting paragraph:

“We can think of a strong candidate (for a successor):

Boise State University President

Bob Kustra,

who is a former Illinois lieutenant governor and state senator. Kustra is a successful college president and he navigated Illinois politics with extremely high integrity. Illinois’ premier public university will need a president who can handle the politics without succumbing to this state’s breathtakingly corrupt political culture.”

For those new to to the political arena, Kustra was the Establishment candidate for U.S. Senator when he was upset by Lake County’s State Rep. Al Salvi.

The graduation rate in six years for Boise State is 28%.

On August 31st, the Chicago Tribune took Chicago State University to the wood shed for having a 16% graduation rate after six years.

On this, McHenry County Blog scooped the Tribune on June 27th.

Have to wonder if signs like this will start showing up in all the state legislative districts where money seems to me no object.

And, what will be the impact?

Back in 1996 when my colleague State Rep. Al Salvi was running against Lt. Gov. Bob Kustra for the GOP nomination for United State Senate, we had joint yard signs in my district.

They started out as issue signs.

The campaign got hassled by the folks in Crystal Lake, but when my campaign manager Orville Brettman (Carpentersville Village President before he moved to rural Huntley) pointed out the the city legal eagles a U.S. Supreme Court decision out of Missouri where a woman was told she could, indeed, have a sheet of paper opposing the first Iraq War, the city let our signs stay up.

When the time period arrived when candidate signs could go up, we slapped on color coordinated bumper stickers promoting both of our candidacies.

So, we were running a coordinated campaign. He against Kustra and I against John Brehmer, McHenry County Republican Chairman Al Jourdan’s pick.

Until about a third of the votes were counted, we were both getting 55% in McHenry County.

Then, a funny thing happened.

Al stayed at 55% and my percentage kept dropping, and dropping, and dropping until it ended up just under 50%.

Now, how could that have happened?

One of my supporters later compared the number of votes cast for state representative with the number who voted for Republican precinct committeeman at the bottom of the ticket. Very few of these positions were even contested. And, lots of people don’t vote for uncontested positions.

You know he found?

More people had cast votes for GOP precinct committeeman than in the hotly contested state rep. race.

As the Church Lady used to say,

“Isn’t that special?”

When the Daily Herald called to ask about my close victory, my comment was something like this:

“They forgot about Barrington Township.”

I had about 13 precincts therein Cook County where the ballots were counted in each precinct rather than taken to a central counting location, as they were in McHenry County. I carried Barrington Township as well as I was carrying McHenry County for the counting of the first third of its precincts.

Strange how the first third of the ballots counted were a representative sample for Al Salvi, but not for me, isn’t it?

Have to wonder if signs like this will start showing up in all the state legislative districts where money seems to me no object.

And, what will be the impact?

Back in 1996 when my colleague State Rep. Al Salvi was running against Lt. Gov. Bob Kustra for the GOP nomination for United State Senate, we had joint yard signs in my district.

They started out as issue signs.

The campaign got hassled by the folks in Crystal Lake, but when my campaign manager Orville Brettman (Carpentersville Village President before he moved to rural Huntley) pointed out the the city legal eagles a U.S. Supreme Court decision out of Missouri where a woman was told she could, indeed, have a sheet of paper opposing the first Iraq War, the city let our signs stay up.

When the time period arrived when candidate signs could go up, we slapped on color coordinated bumper stickers promoting both of our candidacies.

So, we were running a coordinated campaign. He against Kustra and I against John Brehmer, McHenry County Republican Chairman Al Jourdan’s pick.

Until about a third of the votes were counted, we were both getting 55% in McHenry County.

Then, a funny thing happened.

Al stayed at 55% and my percentage kept dropping, and dropping, and dropping until it ended up just under 50%.

Now, how could that have happened?

One of my supporters later compared the number of votes cast for state representative with the number who voted for Republican precinct committeeman at the bottom of the ticket. Very few of these positions were even contested. And, lots of people don’t vote for uncontested positions.

You know he found?

More people had cast votes for GOP precinct committeeman than in the hotly contested state rep. race.

As the Church Lady used to say,

“Isn’t that special?”

When the Daily Herald called to ask about my close victory, my comment was something like this:

“They forgot about Barrington Township.”

I had about 13 precincts therein Cook County where the ballots were counted in each precinct rather than taken to a central counting location, as they were in McHenry County. I carried Barrington Township as well as I was carrying McHenry County for the counting of the first third of its precincts.

Strange how the first third of the ballots counted were a representative sample for Al Salvi, but not for me, isn’t it?