McHenry County Blog

The Lake County Eye masthead. Click on the image and you can see someone holding a camera.

He calls himself “non-partisan” and “from the center,” but my McHenry County Eye has detected a Democratic Party leaning from the blogster who calls himself “Lake County Eye.”

He, as I, had his interest piqued by McHenry County Republican Central Committee Chairman Mike Tryon’s choice of little-known three and a half year Lake Barrington resident Kent Gaffney.

But he found his almost $1.2 million new home on Coneflower Drive, purchased in 2008, and published an aerial photo of it.

He also ferreted out the salary of Tom Cross’ Budget Director–about $106.000.

The base salary for a state representative is $67,836, so Gaffney is taking quite a pay cut by stepping into the public eye.

This is still further evidence that people seek pubic office for more than the money.

As Ray Humphries, the head of the Republican National Committee’s field operations in 1968 told a campaign management school at Illinois College, told those in attendance, people are motivated by the three “P’”:

• Power
• Prestige
• Pecuniary

It’s not phonetic, but we’re talking power, prestige and money.

In my Associate Minister’s sermon a couple of weeks ago, entitled, “Wrestling with the Devil,” Pastor Darneather Heath spoke of the temptation of Jesus in his 40 days in the wilderness.

Read to the end of this story and you will imagine my surprise when this slide popped up on the screen as she talked of the Devil having tempted Jesus with ruling the kingdoms of the world.

Look at those promises:

• Wealth




• Prestige




• Power

Those were three things the Devil was promising Jesus.

Jump back forty years and I was attending a campaign school at Illinois College in Jacksonville, Illinois, while I was McHenry County Treasurer

An old pro from the Republican National Committee named Ray Humphries was talking about political motivations.

It is a talk I have given to numerous potential candidates since then.

His lesson was something like this:

“People say they are running for office to make the world better.

“But, there are three underlying motivations. I call them ‘The Three P’s:’

• Power,

• Prestige
  

• Pecuniary

They are e-x-a-c-t-l-y the same.

Never thought I would have heard a Biblically-based message in a campaign management school.

At that same school I listened to future federal judge Harlington Wood, Jr., talk about campaign laws. He was certainly a gentle man. He died the end of last year.