Whitney Writes for McHenry County Defenders

I had wondered if Green Party gubernatorial candidate Rich Whitney had made any impact on his natural and well-organized McHenry County constituency—the McHenry County Defenders.

I have often characterized the McHenry County Defenders as the largest and best-organized political organization in McHenry County.

While they do not participate overtly in partisan elections besides running candidates’ forums once in a while, when a local group feels aggrieved, it’s often the Defenders they turn to.

And, the Defenders are capable of giving fits to local and county governmental entities.

Currently, they have taken up the cause of a Burton’s Bridge neighborhood threatened by a building as big as a Jewel store “to serve commercial building businesses and to develop a storage facility for commercial equipment and vehicles,” as an article by neighbor Lori McConville writes.

Nevertheless, I was surprised to see

A Call to Action

by Rich Whitney
2006 Green Party candidate for Governor

on the front page of “Nature Matters,” the quarterly newsletter of the McHenry County Defenders. It goes on for two and one-have pages.

And, I learned its writing was solicited by the Defenders.

I haven’t read it yet, but wonder if Whitney will attend the Saturday, February 10th annual pot luck dinner meeting at Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church in McHenry. (It’s “members only,” so, if you want to attend, get yours dues check in.)

If he came, he might be able to stimulate some members to run for county board in 2008 as Green Party members.

He might even be able to recruit enough precinct committeemen to form a real party in McHenry County.

Bill Baar at Illinoize points out that the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has an article about the opportunities by Adam Jadhay.

It starts,

Wanted: One candidate for the U.S. Senate, 19 for the U.S. House, 118 potential state representatives, dozens more wannabe state senators, hundreds of potential county officials.

And as many as 11,692 precinct committeemen, among other vacancies. Interested applicants should contact the Illinois Green Party.

Phil Huckelberry is the party's candidate recruitment guy. Anyone know how to get in touch with him?

Whitney received 10,750 votes for governor in McHenry County. In contrast, I got 3,903 in 2002 as the Libertarian Party candidate.

Posted first on McHenry County Blog.