Parallels to perception of Lauf’s focus outside Illinois not lost on this discerning voter
This past Saturday (November 20), former IL-16 Republican candidate Catalina Lauf attended the college football game between the United States Naval Academy Midshipmen and the East Carolina Pirates.
The Navy-East Carolina game was the last home game of the season at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis, MD, as Navy’s final two games take place in Philadelphia this Saturday (at Temple) and the pageantry and tradition of the Army-Navy game on December 11, the final regular season football game for Division I-A NCAA football.
The fact the Midshipmen are in a 2-8 season including Saturday’s 38-35 loss to the Pirates and are not bowl eligible is not relevant, as the men and women of the service academies, in the case of the United States Naval Academy both future Navy and United States Marine Corps officers, will lead men and women in the Navy and/or USMC when their Academy education is complete.
The above tweet explained, with Lauf decked-out in official Navy collegiate apparel, how she was in Annapolis at the invitation of a friend to honor the service assignments of friends.
Lauf had a similar post on her Instagram page, along with metadata she was posting from Annapolis on Saturday night.
All Americans do, and should honor the nation’s men and women who serve our country every day of the year, and whether they attend one of the service academies, officer candidate school or an enlisted man or woman, they are all honored and ready to give their lives for God and country if necessary.
From the desk of John Lopez: It was Lauf’s 2nd Instagram post on Monday, complete with 5 pictures and a video of a U.S. Navy flyover, where Lauf departed from honoring the men and women of the United States Naval Academy into in the honest opinion of a close friend, crossed the boundary to narcissistic behavior.
It also revealed a common “word-on-the-street” about Lauf being interested in events and people outside of Illinois, and not fellow Republican candidates in Illinois, given her record of not financially backing Illinois Republican candidates in the 2020 election cycle, through her Defense of Freedom PAC.
Lauf’s, as written about on McHenry County Blog previously, continued descent of disrespect for local people and institutions which in my honest opinion, has shown why Lauf may not yet be ready for elective public office, especially in Washington, at this stage of her life in her late 20s though she clearly has the potential to serve in public office yet lacks significant experiences, both professionally and in life.
In my honest opinion, Lauf’s lack of a verifiable record of accomplishments will be her undoing if she runs for congressional office in 2022.
Thoughtful commenters from McHenry County Blog have asked — why didn’t Lauf financially back through her PAC Republican nominees like Jim Oberweis (IL-14), Esther Joy King (IL-17) and Congressman Rodney Davis (IL-13) who were all in close races, but backed 14 Republicans from outside of Illinois a year ago.
Throw in, after Lauf’s 2020 primary loss to Oberweis in IL-14, it took her over 4 months until she finally endorsed Oberweis publicly, when the other five Republicans who also lost the IL-14 primary endorsed Oberweis within hours after the primary returns were posted.
Here is the verbiage from Lauf’s 2nd Instagram post about her trip to the United States Naval Academy with emphasis added:
“We are so proud of ALL our service academy appointees from Illinois…
“Don’t worry, we’ll make it to West Point and the others too! 😉
“We had so much fun tailgating and at the game, and we are forever grateful to all of our young service-members nationwide and their new journeys ahead 🇺🇸
“Also to be a freshman again! First college football game I’ve been to since my Miami Of Ohio days — college kids — ENJOY your time it goes by fast!”
Catalina Lauf Instagram post, 11/22/21
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All right, from my emphasized points above, Lauf commits she/her campaign will “…make it to West Point and the others too!”
Obviously, West Point is reference to the United States Military Academy where the cadets learn/train to be future leaders in the United States Army.
Sounds like she’s also committed to visit the other service academies:
- Colorado Springs, CO, home of the United States Air Force Academy and includes the United States Space Force Academy (cadets for Air Force wear gold sashes on their dress uniforms, Space Force wear silver sashes)
- New London, CT, home of the United States Coast Guard Academy
Looks like more frequent flyer miles (or extended road trips) forthcoming for Lauf and her congressional campaign to the states of New York, Connecticut and Colorado, though likely not at a football game like she did in Annapolis given the season is all but over.
One starts to think, as Lauf is expected to seek election to Congress next year in the new IL-11, she’s devoting time and Instagram posts with pictures of veterans and service members as a prelude to a potential Republican primary race against 20-year career Army officer Major (ret.) Michael Pierce of Naperville, who has declared his candidacy to challenge Congressman Bill Foster (D, Naperville) for the IL-11 congressional seat.
To be clear, Lauf has yet to declare a congressional run for 2022 now that her challenge to Congressman Adam Kinzinger (R, Channahon) ended when Kinzinger announced on October 29 he will not seek reelection.
Whether Lauf runs for anything in 2022 is her business, and she’ll make her announcement for her plans for next year at the appropriate time.
And Lauf states the Navy-East Carolina game was the first college football game she’s attended since she went to school at Miami of Ohio.
Lauf graduated from Miami in the fall of 2013, so assuming she attended RedHawks football games her senior year at Yager Stadium, it’s been at least 8 years since she last went to a college football game before Saturday night.
But since Lauf attended a football game across the country in Annapolis, it’ll be interesting to see if she will be attending the big football game in Naperville this Saturday afternoon, as the defending Division III National Champion North Central College Cardinals take the field in the 2nd round of the Division III playoffs, hosting the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse.
North Central College, based in the new IL-11, had a perfect 10-0 season after winning the National Championship in Division III in 2019 over Wisconsin-Whitewater, and with the 2020 season wiped out due to COVID, are defending their title.
The Cardinals advanced in the playoffs to the round-of-16 when their 1st round opponent had a COVID outbreak on the team, and their playoff match-up was declared a “no-contest” win.
The parallels of Lauf’s constant attention to people and events nationally, opposed to locally in college football is not lost with the political figures she’s supported. Hopefully Lauf’s potential IL-11 primary opponent being alumni of North Central College is not why she’s withholding public support for a local, Illinois-based defending football champion from Naperville where Division III players are all non scholarship athletes.
And given Lauf tweeted about the service academies, the United States Coast Guard Academy also plays in Division III NCAA football.
If Lauf tweets or posts Instagram pics from Saturday’s game at Benedetti-Wehrli Stadium, Lauf could begin to show herself as one who cares about local, Illinois-based people and institutions.
Kickoff is Noon CST on Saturday in Naperville.
But back to the Lauf Instagram pictures with her decked in official Navy apparel from Under Armour officially licensed products, brought back memories from 42 years ago of a certain song from the Village People, released in 1979.
Enjoy the video for “In the Navy”.
I can’t stop laufing.
Big deal. A lady goes to a football game.
Since you’re talking about preps, McHenry County Blog readers might want to know that the local team Cary-Grove is playing E St Louis in the 6A IHSA finals.
Cary-Grove has a great football program and they have been to many championships.
They play on Saturday November 27th at 1 p.m. but I don’t know where.
Are you sure there aren’t scholarships for D 3?
D 3 schools recruit athletes from all over the country and even internationally.
I find that surprising and hard to believe.
How are those schools able to attract talent without scholarships?
Does that only apply to football or all sports? (A lot of D 3 schools don’t even have a football team.)
John, are you implying Lauf wouldn’t be going to these military games if it weren’t for Mike Pierce?
If so, I’m not sure about that.
This is the sort of rah rah military pandering that is typical with Republicans and seems like something Lauf would be doing with or without Pierce’s entry into the race but that’s just my opinion.
Not sure it’s any more narcissistic than any other Instagram or Twitter post in general or that it’s a swipe at Pierce or North Central College either.
It’s difficult to speculate about motives and hypotheticals here though.
I’m also curious if you think Lauf might wait until January for an announcement so she can check Pierce’s financial numbers and viability (Q4).
Getting signatures wont’ be a problem for her so she could wait and see, start getting signatures a bit late, and still easily get them.
Correcting,
It is true, NCAA Division III schools do not offer athletic scholarships.
They are the epitome of student-athletes, or put another way, they are all walk-ons.
https://www.ncaa.org/student-athletes/play-division-iii-sports
In addition to North Central College (NCC), Wheaton College advanced to the 2nd round of the NCAA Division III football playoffs, and improved to 10-1, with their one loss to CCIW Champion to the undefeated NCC.
Wheaton plays on the road at Central Dutch in Iowa Saturday at Noon.
Will answer the Lauf questions in separate comment.
Lauf is laufable as a candidate.
She has done absolutely nothing yet in her life other than a political campaign job and working for her close relatives, who she doesn’t appear to be doing much, if any. work for.
Maybe she should actually join the armed forces and then she can talk about how pro-military she is and will have at least accomplished something in her life.
The real reason the service academies have such loser teams is because they have higher academic standards and no basketweaving or PE majors.
I could have happily gone for the rest of my life without knowing this spoiled brat took a weekend trip.
Ms Trumpion, baboons are not admitted.
Correcting commented on Wednesday:
John, are you implying Lauf wouldn’t be going to these military games if it weren’t for Mike Pierce?
If so, I’m not sure about that.
Correcting, no, didn’t imply or infer what you said in comment.
Just an observation, since the calendar turned to November, multiple posts on Lauf’s campaign Instagram page has her in pics with both veterans and service academy members, and the volume appears to be more than Veterans Day timing, given the Annapolis trip.
This is the sort of rah rah military pandering that is typical with Republicans and seems like something Lauf would be doing with or without Pierce’s entry into the race but that’s just my opinion.
Fair enough, yet in primary races last year where some of the candidates had military service and others did not, I observed the non-military candidates would have many pictures supporting Veterans or Veterans support groups and touting endorsements from Veterans.
The most vivid example I witnessed this was in last year’s FL-13 Republican primary where primary winner (and close Lauf ally) Anna Paulina Luna resonated because of her military service, and runner up Amanda Makki, who did not serve in the military, did plenty of posts from veterans. Looks like Lauf starting to do the same with trip to Annapolis and her promise to visit the other service academies.
Not sure it’s any more narcissistic than any other Instagram or Twitter post in general or that it’s a swipe at Pierce or North Central College either.
It’s difficult to speculate about motives and hypotheticals here though.
Correcting, a point you missed which is true feedback I’ve heard is Lauf cares more about national people then she does about local Illinois people and events, which is why local leaders are not ready to go with Lauf in the winnable IL-11 next year.
Pierce’s is only the 1st of Republicans entering the race, but I do expect others to come forward, including for the reason that many believe Lauf is not ready, and/or, as Rich Miller put it last month, Lauf is a DC-consultant creation, and her fundraising burn rate is proof.
I’m also curious if you think Lauf might wait until January for an announcement so she can check Pierce’s financial numbers and viability (Q4).
Lauf has claimed that by the end of October, she had raised $1 million. Personally, I don’t believe that since based on Sept 30 FEC filing, she had only raised $809K, and I don’t see it possible she had a $200K month of October. When her year-end FEC report filed in just over 2 months, will be looking to see when she crossed the $1 million in receipts.
Also, while Lauf’s social media no longer says she’s running in IL-16, her WinRed page linked from her Twitter page still uses Adam Kinzinger to raise money off of, so Lauf still raising money off of Kinzinger nearly a month after he dropped his reelection bid.
Getting signatures wont’ be a problem for her so she could wait and see, start getting signatures a bit late, and still easily get them.
Let’s remember, Lauf had to go through the embarrassing self-inflicted wound of a petition challenge 2 years ago in IL-14 because she used out-of-state petition circulators because she didn’t have enough in-state grassroots support to help her place her name on the 2020 primary ballot.
Whether she has to rely on the same approach next year remains to be seen, but given her history, when petition filing ends in mid-March, there will be more scrutiny on her petitions.
Sorry, but I’m not a member of Lauf’s cargo cult.
The two times I met her at political functions she had food stains on her front. Not sure what that exactly portends, but it was kinda off putting.
Message to Mr. Idiot (Because Science):
You rail against Lauf’s accomplishments, which I admit are few, yet you have NONE
My non-rhetorical question for you is at the very bottom of this comment. The rest is just additional commentary.
“Correcting, a point you missed which is true feedback I’ve heard is Lauf cares more about national people then she does about local Illinois people and events, which is why local leaders are not ready to go with Lauf in the winnable IL-11 next year.”
:p
You probably heard that feedback from ME at some point in one of my many critical comments about her which began in the summer of 2019.
“and/or, as Rich Miller put it last month, Lauf is a DC-consultant creation”
^More of the same narrative I’ve been pushing about Lauf on this blog since the 2020 cycle. But I’m glad that Rich Miller picks up on the things I say even if he is about two years behind the curve.
That’s just me gloating and hoping Skinner sends a box of hot chocolate or something. haha ok now to get serious for a minute.
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“Lauf has claimed that by the end of October, she had raised $1 million. Personally, I don’t believe that since based on Sept 30 FEC filing, she had only raised $809K, and I don’t see it possible she had a $200K month of October. When her year-end FEC report filed in just over 2 months, will be looking to see when she crossed the $1 million in receipts.”
Doubtful about her claim too.
My guess is her being fairly new to politics, she didn’t count on someone to check when *specifically* she was getting her donations.
She expects to get a million dollars in the quarter (which is reasonable) but assumes people will take her comment as truthful and not get into the records in detail.
She should know by now that this blog has some ruthless people who don’t play loose with the facts and are savage towards politicians.
Especially now that this blog *itself* (not just the commenters but the authors) are taking a more critical approach in covering Lauf, she should be extra careful. A comment like that could come back to haunt her if it is not truthful.
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“Let’s remember, Lauf had to go through the embarrassing self-inflicted wound of a petition challenge 2 years ago in IL-14 because she used out-of-state petition circulators because she didn’t have enough in-state grassroots support to help her place her name on the 2020 primary ballot.”
I’ll push back a little bit on that.
How embarrassing was it?
I don’t think it was that bad for her, at least after it was all said and done.
1. She was the only candidate who got a challenge which I’d argue made her seem like the only threat.
2. She got challenged by Oberweis’s people which cemented the perception of her as an anti-establishment candidate and made Oberweis look kind of greasy (he ended up winning the primary but lost the general election).
3. She survived her challenge so why does it matter? The point is somewhat moot. Winning the challenge is winning the challenge.
Maybe it was a bit embarrassing that her main help was from out of state but by the time the primary came around (which if I recall was 3 o 4 months after petitions were due) nobody was really talking about that as a big scandal for her including the big critics of Lauf like Jen Nevins and I.
People had other issues with her.
What looked bad about it wasn’t just that the people were from out of state but also how *few* people circulated for her — the magnitude of her reliance on a few people from out of state.
It undercut her message as a “grassroots” type of candidate when many of her signatures came from just a couple people who live out of state.
If she runs again, however, I expect the signature collecting duty to be divided among more people and more people who live within the state, so don’t expect that to be an issue/problem for her.
Of course, anybody can challenge even if it is clear that the candidate has enough valid signatures.
Lauf has no control over what her opponents do, so if she does get challenged it’s not a big deal unless they knock her off the ballot or there is a bad scandal like signature forgeries.
I wouldn’t expect either to happen.
The difference is that this time around she is going to have name recognition so presumably more people helping her AND she has hundreds of thousands of dollars in the fund to get people on the ground.
She’ll be able to assemble people quicker than she was able to last time.
She’ll be more organized and now she has done this before so she has experience.
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“Also, while Lauf’s social media no longer says she’s running in IL-16, her WinRed page linked from her Twitter page still uses Adam Kinzinger to raise money off of, so Lauf still raising money off of Kinzinger nearly a month after he dropped his reelection bid.”
^That was something I alluded to a few weeks ago. Now that Kinzinger is out of the race, how is Lauf going to raise money? What is her sales pitch? Why should someone donate to her? She has made it her theme not just this cycle but also in the 2020 cycle to be against “the swamp” and “RINOs.”
Based on what you’re saying about her WinRed page, it’s not something she has figured out yet.
She should have been thinking about that — since most of us observant people knew that Kinzinger’s district was going to get wiped out well before the “expert” politicos did, well before the state legislature had gone to the drawing board, and well before it had been reported by journalists, or passed in the legislature, or signed into law.
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Here’s the question I promised:
Don’t you think more candidates in the race gives Lauf an advantage and doesn’t the entry of more candidates split the vote and give Lauf a greater chance of winning the primary?
She has name recognition, she has connections in the media, she has money.
She has all these advantages over Pierce and presumably against most people who might enter.
Wouldn’t she go into an 11th district primary as the front-runner and the more candidates who enter, the more things are split in the anti-Lauf camp?
I don’t see there being a huge anti-Pierce crowd lol.
Unless a big name gets in there like a celebrity or a state legislator, isn’t it safe to assume Lauf would be going in as NOT the underdog this time?
That would be kind of an interesting development or flip in the script, and maybe Lauf’s opponents would/should try to paint her as the D.C. Frankenstein Monster (like what you said about Rich Miller’s observation [which is something I said years ago]).
The Catalina Critter.
The Lauf Lychen.
The Guatemalan Gomora.
Or something…
Feels a bit more like Halloween to me today than Thanksgiving hahaha
Happy Thanksgiving.
Will respond later, Correcting, but please see ending of my most recent article concerning Catalina Lauf’s Thanksgiving wishes, “from California with Love”.
The Honor Code will open up some additional coverage after the holiday.
And remember, I did reference you, if not indirectly, with as being one of many “thoughtful commenters” concerning Lauf.
Please check out the latest travels of Lauf in California, and imagine the old Indiana Jones movies, with the red line on a map charting Lauf’s jet-setting just within the past week, and the theme to the Indiana Jones movies will play in your head.
Happy Thanksgiving to you too, and to all!
I meant to say million dollars cumulatively by the end of the quarter not in a single quarter (just in case that wasn’t clear) and will read the CALIFORNIA article soon.
Correcting has a fixation on Lauf, but is it like Danny Aylward (Transgendered McH. Co. Clerk) and his fixation on Justin Beiber?
A bit creepy.
How about a separate story thread for those of us who attended, via tv, the football game wherein the Bears pummeled the Lions, 16-14 on Thanksgiving? What about that great halftime show with Christmas holiday songs?
I often write long comments about gerrymandering, long comments about township scandals, long comments about memes, long comments about Donald Trump, long comments about George Soros, long comments about the county board, long comments about road intersections, long comments about music, long comments about political theory, long comments about Saturn worshiping cults, long comments about elections, long comments to articles in general.
If you want to skip over them and read bred winner’s commentary about halftime shows during DA BEARS games, you may do that. I don’t blame you since they are long comments. Some people just don’t have the attention span or are apathetic about the subject being discussed.
This is an article about Catalina Lauf though, so it makes sense people would talk about her… If it were up to me, I would not have written an article doing analysis of a TWEET of SELFIES like John did and I have, along with many other commenters, suggested that Lauf gets written about on here too much. But when the article is up, yeah, I’m probably going to weigh in. :/
Nobody expects Cal or John to be quoting you, Duncan, like they regularly quote me. It’s your prerogative to leave low effort comments and be obsessed with transgender people and irrelevantly shoehorn that into every conversation. Maybe that makes you the creepy one?
When I type longer comments out, I usually put them in paragraph format. The authors (Cal or John) split them up into sentences and make each one its own line which takes up much more room visually.
I enjoy bantering with John and others on this blog, and there are some Justin Bieber songs that I find catchy. He’s not a bad R & B singer.
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For the people who are into “conspiracy theories” check out some of the videos out there analyzing Bieber’s music video “Yummy.”
They say it’s all symbolism about the elites engaging in sex trafficking. There is even character in that video who is supposed to be John Podesta. There are references to adrenochrome too. The video was latched on to by people who believe in Pizza Gate.
There is a rumor is that Justin Bieber himself was abused by Usher. The music industry in general is said to have a mentor/sponsor and the inductee/up-and-comer and they say the up-and-comer gets tricked out by the mentor. Drake supposedly by Lil Wayne, Eminem supposedly by Dr. Dre. It’s like a rite of passage for them to be famous. That’s the rumor anyhow. Seems plausible. Taylor Swift had to switch from doing country music to pop music about breaking up with boys to hit it really big. Katy Perry had to switch from doing Christian music to songs about being a lesbian to hit it big. (Another thing you should look up is the alleged meeting in the early 1990’s, maybe in 91, where a bunch of hip-hop record managers, who were mostly Jewish, sat down with rappers and told them they needed to go in the ‘gangsta rap’ direction. Hip hop in the 80’s was super corny. Some say gangsta rap was the direction rap was going in anyway, and it was picking up some popularity at the time, but others say it was artificially steered that way to have a bad influence on young and especially young black people.)
Insane Clown Posse’s song “Eminem Ain’t Nothing But A Bitch Thang” talks about Dre and Eminem. That was when ICP and Em were beefing.
Ice Cube’s song “No Vaseline” is a diss track of Eazy E from N.W.A (which Dr. Dre and Ice Cube were also in) and it is about Eazy E being banged by his Jewish manager.
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By the way, since I spent time with family on Thanksgiving, I DID catch the Bears game which happened to be on. Not the halftime show so I have no thoughts/response to bred winner on that.
My take on the Bears winning on Sunday is that this gives their fans false hope, it may prevent Nagy from being fired (which he should be), and to defeat a team that has not won a SINGLE game at the LAST SECOND and only because of a field goal is not great or worth bragging about.
I would not describe that game as a “pummeling” either.
Detroit took the lead in the first quarter.
Chicago took the lead in the second quarter.
Detroit took the lead in the third quarter.
Chicago took the lead as the clock expired.
It was a low scoring game. Neither team looked good.
Normally I don’t watch TV and haven’t watched football much in the last few years because they have gotten really annoying with all the political activism.