By Lee Newcom
The incredible lack of leadership ability in people purporting to lead the Republican Party in this state is astonishing. I keep thinking it will get better, then something even more stupid than I thought possible happens.
I have to admit, I listened to the Don and Roma show on WLS this morning in stunned disbelief at what I was hearing. I don't know, maybe it's living down here, 100 miles south in the cornfields that affects my judgment. Maybe we country folk just don't understand those really intelligent people up there. Or, maybe the results of industrial pollution up there over the last 100 years really has affected the genetic makeup of the brains of people. Certainly, that seemed to be the case from what I heard.
Let's have a little exercise in how to run a political party. . .
You are the head of the Republican Party in one of the largest and most infamous counties in the United States. You know that Republicans can never be truly competitive statewide until you bring the party back. And, what an opporunity to show leadership and be the party of reform!
The newly elected Democratic President of the Cook County board is a boob. The county government is a cesspool of corruption and waste. It's so rampant that everyone knows it and the press just keeps running new stories on the graft and waste.
You have just come off an election where the GOP candidate was highly credible, competitive and started finally raising to public awareness the concept that we can do something to right this ship. He lost, but the big mo is on our side. Reagan won in 1980 after years of educating the public. Newt won the first Republican majority in the US House in 40 years in 1994, after years of educating the public.
This is our chance to educate the public on what is wrong with Cook County and build toward future domination of Cook County. Yes, it is possible. So what is the next step?
The new Democrat boob, President Stroger, offers a budget that is highly suspect and incompetent, bringing to public attention again and again the graft and corruption of the county government. The sheriff and states' attorney are publicly repudiating it. County Board members form a coalition of 12 to stop it. We have to reform it. The momentum is here. This is how you continue to educate the public that you can reform county government.
Then...several Republican members of the Cook County Board, including the newly-elected Cook County Republican Chairman, Liz Gorman, enter the back room with President Boob and cut a deal. Tony Peraica, the reform Republican and Forrest Claypool, the reform Democrat, ask "Why?"
And how does Cook County Republican Chairman Liz Gorman answer them?
She goes on WLS-AM's popular Don and Roma show this morning and savages who? REFORM REPUBLICAN TONY PERAICA! She refers to Tony Peraika as "that kind of a person," to which Wade asks what she means.
Then comes the part I am incredulous to listen to. Gorman dismisses Tony Peraica as a just defeated candidate, calls him corrupt and trying to benefit his cronies, the "Howard Dean" of our party, accuses him of only trying to get publicity, that he hangs with "hooligans and drunks." This diatribe, by the the REPUBLICAN COUNTY CHAIRMAN against TONY PERAICA, THE REPUBLICAN REFORMER, goes on at length.
About the boob President, she only says they got him to compromise and will continue to work with him to reform county government.
I don't know and to my knowlege have never met Liz Gorman nor Tony Peraica. I'm just observing this from afar. My observation through this looking glass: Liz Gorman is completely incapable of leading a county wide political organization. She is tone deaf, along with the other Republican Cook County Board members who did the back room deal. She is also part of the problem, public officials without integrity or the ability to lead, who substitute their own substantial ego and ambition for the public good.
Will someone please lead this party? Is that really an unreasonable request?
