It’s that time of year when people who want to be in public office start approaching the “powers-that-be,” some times at the suggestion of others who would rather not see them run.

When I was thinking about running in the Republican primary for McHenry County Treasurer in 1966, my father’s advice was to come home and visit with the prospective opponents.

I did.

One was a man who had married the bankers’s daughter, supposedly, a horse trader by profession. The other was the police chief of Harvard.

After meeting with them, I was not intimidated.

In my case, it was an all or nothing situation. I quit my civil service job in the United State’s Budget Bureau in Washington, took my $1,800 in savings and came home to run.

Visiting precinct committeemen, I got the, “It’s not your time. Wait a while,” line. I think that was from the township supervisor reputed to be part of a bookie operation.

My favorite was from a man who predicted I would “be eaten alive by the lions” in the courthouse.

I admit to having met some folks in Woodstock who could have been characterized as animals—a bull(y) in a China closet comes immediately to mind–but the lion analogy didn’t fit any of them.

So, some advice to prospective candidates, who will have to file their petitions between Dec. 12th through the 19th:

BE BOLD.

Power is held quite tenuously in McHenry County.

For more advice that will be worth at least as much as you paid for it, click here.