“Do you know the difference between an error and a mistake? Anyone can make an error…but, that error doesn’t become a mistake until you refuse to correct it!” – Grand Admiral Thrawn, Star Wars: Heir to the Empire

What began as a “bad miscommunication” middle to latter part of last week quickly transformed into a mockery of two local elected officials in the upper Fox Valley by the Richard Irvin/Avery Bourne gubernatorial ticket campaign.

Kane County Board Member Cliff Surges (R, Gilberts) and McHenry County Board Member Jeff Thorsen (R, Crystal Lake) were communicated to have endorsed Irvin for governor in the primary election June 28.

The Irvin-Bourne campaign issued a press release on February 9 signaling a Second Wave of endorsements for Irvin from local elected leaders, former elected leaders and/or current/former civil servants.

Though announced on February 9 and updated on the Irvin-Bourne campaign website around the same time, no one really noticed the new endorsements until last Wednesday, when McHenry County Blog published an article about Surges’ fundraiser tonight in East Dundee, when commenters Casey Amos and Correcting exchanged comments about Surges endorsing Irvin.

McHenry County Blog published the entire Second Wave endorsement list upon finding the press release in Google and confirming the publication at the Irvin-Bourne campaign website. Local elected officials in McHenry and northern Kane counties last Thursday (the article has been updated twice since Thursday) were highlighted.

Both privately and publicly, McHenry County Blog received word directly from both Surges and Thorsen they made no such endorsement of Irvin for the primary.

The Irvin-Bourne campaign was communicated the same and the expectation set the miscommunication would be quickly corrected, including removal of Surges’, Thorsen’s and any other names which should NOT be on the Irvin endorsement list.

Come Friday morning, the word had reached gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey (R, Xenia) who included the following on his Friday morning Facebook video update.

“With the recent advent of the Irvin campaign, they are touting many legislators and many people supporting them.

“Yesterday, we discovered three people on their list, a state senator and a few others, who weren’t supposed to be on that list.

“Never gave them any permission.

“These lies and deception have got to stop, but it only stops when you get involved, when you truly find out what’s going on and you confront these people and tell them to knock it off.”

Darren Bailey Facebook campaign video, transcribed by Capitol Fax, 2/25/22

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Through 9:50AM CST on Monday morning, February 28, Surges and Thorsen are still listed as having endorsed the Irvin-Bourne ticket for the primary 4 months from today.

From the desk of John Lopez: The quote from the non-canon sequel of the original Star Wars trilogy at the top of this article quite appropriate in the context of Surges and Thorsen.

To be fair, let’s examine facts.

Miscommunications happen.

Campaigns are run by people, and all people are NOT perfect.

Yet when the miscommunication of Surges and Thorsen was made known through reliable communication with the Irvin-Bourne campaign, the names should have been IMMEDIATELY removed from the campaign website listing endorsements.

They are still there nearly 5 days after the word was sent Surges and Thorsen had NOT endorsed Irvin-Bourne in the Republican primary.

The miscommunication error had NOT been corrected.

Before anyone tries to minimize and/or dismiss the uncorrected error behind news stories of the war in Ukraine or other issues, two local Fox Valley Republican elected leaders were made a mockery by the Irvin-Bourne campaign’s lack of quick action to remedy the miscommunication.

One or both may have drawn a Republican primary challenger in their own reelection bids this year because of it(?).

Irvin-Bourne campaign needs to quickly correct the endorsement miscommunication error, AND own what happened, apologize directly to Surges, Thorsen and anyone else wrongly included on the endorsements list.

Then Irvin-Bourne needs to take appropriate action in their own team, and given the protracted time to make amends, need to make appropriate corrections so any kind of error without quick correction is not repeated in future.

McHenry County Blog has done its part to make this story known and communicate behind the scenes to resolve this error.

Now the Irvin-Bourne campaign needs to do their part, instead of sweeping this under the rug.