Democrat Mary Margaret Maule Campaigns for McHenry County Board

Mary Margaret Maue, a Democrat running for county board in the McHenry-Johnsburg-Wonder Lake district would have been knocking on doors if it had been August.

But it’s September and people don’t like to open their doors at 7 PM.

So candidates like Maule have to find other venues.

I always thought bowling alleys and bars were great places to campaign at night. Maybe she’s done or will do that.

Thursday night, however, Maule was at the McHenry County Conservation District meeting.

She stood up during the public comment period (fter the MCCD ranger union spokesman told how his union didn’t think the district was really negotiating) and introduced herself.

“I moved here from Virginia 4 years ago. I’m a retired Navy wife.”

She talked about how she was the only candidate who actually decided to live here, rather than having been born in the McHenry area.

Nice twist, I’d say.

Maule did have one substantive suggestion for the conservation district board.

She wished for a dog exercise place. She said she had to go to Lake County and pay, I think, over $100.

I imagine that might appear if she wins her race for the county board over the two incumbent Republicans—Pete Merkel and Sandra Fay Salgado.

When I asked Maule whom she was running against, she said, “Pete Merkel.”

Of course, she is really running against both of them, but probably realizes the advantage that women have over men in McHenry County electoral contests.

I asked if she were the one with whom Jack Franks was knocking on doors and discovered she’s the one.

Maule gave me one of her cards and I found that she lists herself as a “former legislative liaison for Representative Jack Franks.”

That, plus her willingness to knock on doors would probably explain Franks’ willingness to walk subdivisions with her.

I asked how many doors she had knocked on and got an estimate of 5,000. (I think I should have put an exclamation mark. When I ran for county treasurer in 1966 I knocked on about 4,000, maybe a couple of hundred more. The primary was June 13th—last time for that, can’t give challengers that much daylight door knocking time.)

Maule said she had covered Johnsburg, Richmond, parts of McHenry and was now working on Wonder Lake.

This will be a good test as to how effective knocking on doors is today in McHenry County.

It certainly worked for Rosemary Kurtz when she beat me in the 2000 GOP primary.

More that you would not expect at McHenry County Blog, including the first mention of the 5-6 month old Chicago Crime Commission investigation of McHenry County in its dominant newspaper, the Northwest Herald.