How Powerful is the McHenry County GOP?
The song
Where did all the flowers go?is running through my head as I ask the question:
Long time passing.
How Powerful is the McHenry County Republican Party?The $18,000 McHenry County Conservation District 500-person survey taken the third week of May by American Viewpoint paints a sad picture for the Republican Party in McHenry County.
There are now more people who identify themselves as Independents than Republicans!
30% say they are “Independents,” while only 28% say they are Republicans.Republicans still outnumber Democrats by 8 percentage points:
28% - Republicanbut that has to be small consolation to Republican leaders.
20% - Democrat
Besides the 48% who identify with the two power parties and the 30% who call themselves Independents, what happened to the other 22% of the citizenry?
13% replied, “Other.”
Does that mean Libertarian, Green or just a voter who didn’t want to tell a pollster?7% refused to answer the question and 2% said they didn’t know.
So, what does “other” mean?
The better question, perhaps, is
Why is a local government is asking for party identification?If memory serves me correctly, members of the MCCD Board cannot have a partisan affiliation.
First posted on McHenry County Blog.
4 comments:
If you look at IL Republicans, would you identify yourself as one?
I'm an Illinois Republican and not at all reluctant to identify my self. I even post under my real name.
Cal, do you think the large number of potential voters identifying themselves as neither Democrat nor Republican will force the major parties to fight for those votes by running better qualified candidates, who can win based on broad appeal to voters rather than party labels?
And, won't the problem with that be that to get on the ballot those candidates have to win primaries that independents don't vote in, only the party faithful?
Look at McHenry County's Republican party leadership....
Bill LeFew (also County Treasurer) just doesn't come across as too trustworthy, particularly when compared to Al Jourdan. Lot of weak links in the party, particularly at the County level.
The bigger problem is that Jack Franks actually comes across as more appealing to the moderates (of both parties) than the Republican party's leadership does.
I'd bet than most of those "Independents" are actually more Republican than Democrat, but the Republican party stalwarts within the County aren't exactly providing a "Big Tent" atmosphere. There's no place for the "middle of the road" folks to go.
The only reason things aren't worse, is that Blago is starting to remind people of "George Ryan circa 1998".
Steve and watcher-
Good observations and good questions.
I see no effort on the part of Republicans in McHenry County to open the conservative flaps to the so-called big tent.
But, if Ersel Schuster gets appointed to the county board to replace the recently deceased Richard Klasen, maybe a new signal would be sent. (Schuster lost the primary by a handful of votes, certainly is a conservative, but County GOP chairman Bill LeFew opposed her.)
There is no effort to recruit those who oppose tax hikes that I can see, yet the president of the biggest tax hiking tax district, Carpentersville School District 300, just got apppointed a Republican precinct committeeman. (The referendums passed with 52-3% and 55%, I think. Want to be that most of the "No" votes were Repubicans or potential Republicans?)
Go figure.
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