The Lake County Gazette
Republicans in Dan Duffy’s State Senate District and Mike Tryon’s State Rep. District have received almost full-sized “newspapers” that promote the candidacies of those supported by the multi-million dollar Liberty Principles PAC.
- For State Senate, that means Dan McConchie.
- For State Rep., the candidate is Allen Skillicorn.
The newsprint Lake County Gazette concentrates on attacking former State Rep. Frank (incorrectly identified as Richard, his father, in the original article) Mautino, who was recently appointed Auditor General.
The paper distributed in Mike Tryon’s district, where Skillicorn is running, is called “The McHenry Times.”
It tells of how he spent his campaign funds, including a hard-to-believe $220,513 number on car expenses at Happy’s Service Station and $273,927 at Spring Valley Bank.
The paper is localized for Lake County by printing the twenty-five highest property taxes in Lake County, plus an article on Lake Village creating a Tax Increment Financing District and youth sports information.
The only mention of anything in McHenry County that I found was a notice of an MCC financial aid help day being held at the Cary Area Library.
My prediction is that the paper will not be seen after the election.
The Daily Herald reports Proft’s saying, “…the paper will be published weekly indefinitely.”
It reminds me of Tom Smrt’s monthly newsletter that was sent to virtually everyone in McHenry County.
It was inspired by the McHenry County Board’s listed sites for possible county airports, one of which was near Smrt’s shire horse farm near the intersection of the Tollway and Route 20.
The newsletter trashed the County Board members who supported the airport for about a year.
It resulted in my father’s allies gaining all the seats in the southeastern part of McHenry County for the only time.
Proft has been given too much power and money to use.
This is NOT healthy.
Oh, for the days of the Star Reporter!
Oh yay, a fake paper!
Proft is a joke.
And it should tell us everything we need to know about Skillicorn that Proft is backing him.
Also: “State Rep. Richard Mautino” — his name is Frank.
An attempt to try and deceive the voters is all this is.
All candidates, especially those who feed from the trough of Proft should publicly condemn Proft and this practice.
I for one will not vote for any candidate who took money from Proft and does not publicly condemn this deception upon the voter who is attempting to discern candidates based upon objective and truthful material.
If this is conservatism I want nothing to do with it!
Anyone endorsed by this paper I would be against.
Billionaire control just like Rauner.
I think there’s a McHenry edition, too.
If anybody has a picture of that paper, shoot it to Cal.
I’m surprised Angry Human (sounds just like Mike Shorten) isn’t attacking conservatives again.
We need a real conservative to take Tryon’s seat.
We don’t need a Springfield liberal like Barb Wheeler.
Tax raiser Barb used to be a conservative when she listened to Joe and Randy Donley.
Now Woodstock Ed and male Springfield RINOS control her button…
Someone did and I added it to the story.
I was in way back land when I identified Frank Mautino’s first name as Richard.
Richard was his father.
I served with both of them.
You have me laughing so out loud, Jim.
The Star Reporter was my father’s paper.
At least in the online editions (haven’t seen a paper copy) Liberty Principles PAC includes their perspective in the “About Us” section.
Reporter Jean Lotus explains further in this article:
Cook County Chronicle
New weekly newspaper mailers part of GOP Super PAC strategy in west Cook County
by Jean Lotus
February 17, 2016
http://www.chronicleillinois.com/news/cook-county-news/new-weekly-newspaper-mailers-part-of-gop-super-pac-strategy-in-west-cook-county
Here are other online editions associated with the PAC.
http://www.chambanasun.com – Champaign Urbana Sun
http://www.dupagepolicyjournal.com – Dupage Policy Journal
http://www.kankakeetimes.com – Kankakee Times
http://www.lakecountygazette.com – Lake County Gazette
http://www.mchenrytimes.com – McHenry Times
http://www.metroeastsun.com – Metro East Sun (St. Louis area)
http://www.northcooknews.com – North Cook News
http://www.westcooknews.com – West Cook News
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Media with a political perspective happens daily on talk radio, the internet, TV, and monthly magazines.
Not so often with print newspapers, but this is by no means the first attempt.
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This endeavor includes local news.
The news media has been struggling with covering local political news especially since the invention of the internet.
The issue is especially acute in Illinois, with more units of local government than any other state, and the reported figures don’t include all the TIF’s & SSAs that are present in Illinois.
And Illinois has an amazing number of pension and state and local retiree healthcare systems to which taxpayers owe BILLIONS.
The government has not served the citizens in that sense and is completely dysfunctional and out of control.
So there definitely seems to be a need for local political coverage.
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Recent attempts by the media at local coverage include TribLocal (Chicago Tribune) and The Patch (AOL).
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The Lake County Gazette can be thought of as Political Local online & print coverage.
To avoid some of the criticism they are burying their perspective they could have a tagline on the front page.
Limited Government, Free Markets, Freedom to Choose.
But it’s not required and at least their perspective is included in the About Us section.