By Mark Rhoads
Very soon now, only nineteen un-elected party hacks will get to hide in a closed room to substitute their judgment for that of 800,000 Republican primary voters of record and will nominate a GOP candidate for U.S. Senator in a special election if a federal judge orders one to take place. Read more to see who the unelected 19 people are.
For the last few years many self-proclaimed GOP precinct, ward, township committeemen and assorted party insiders have railed against SB 600 which would merely restore the rights of GOP primary voters to directly elect members of the state central committee. GOP primary voters always had that right for about 70 years from 1918 to 1988 until a disgusting anti-democratic political power grab by former Gov. Jim Thompson and former McHenry County Chair Al Jourdan robbed all GOP primary voters of that right to vote for their party's governance.
The party insiders have commented here on IR pages with all manner of silly objections to restoring the right of direct election. They argue that it would be a terrible imposition if state central committee people might actually have to cirulate petitions or campaign and actually have to ask GOP voters for their votes like normal candidates for public office always do in primary and general elections. The opponents of SB 600 have argued that indirect election by County Chairs or other party officials who may or may not themselves get approval from voters is good enough for the highest state party officials because after all they are the insiders who care most about the party and what business do mere ordinary GOP primary voters have interfering with a party that belongs exclusively to the insiders? In the insider view, the ordinary GOP voter is an "outsider" who does rate the right to participate in party governance because he or she not care enough to waste a Saturday of valuable family time to travel to a some contrived state convention to listen to party windbags talk all day long and say zero.
I am ashamed of the unelected pretenders who now call themselves the "Illinois Republican Party" because they have no shame when it comes to presuming to speak for voters who never elected them to Jack Squat. I am ashamed of the self-important party insiders who back their unaccountable and corrupt party system of governance. I am also ashamed that the three practically self appointed if nominally indirectly selected members of the Republican National Committee from Illinois have chosen to remain silent on the corruption of the current RNC Chair Michael Steele and his horrible financial mismanagement and his hush money payments to former staffers.
Most of all, I am ashamed at the willful ignorance and obtuse abandonment of transcendant Republican conservative principles by the IRP that seems not to have a clue as to why the party exists apart from filling public jobs.
Today for example, look a the useless GOP ads and the irrelevant GOP web site with cartoons of the hair of former corrupt Gov. Rod Blagojevich. A state political "leader" who engages in repeated adolescent behavior to make fun of competitors instead or making arguments based on the merits of policies that matter to voters is no real leader at all of any kind. I am ashamed most of all of the arrogance of Illinois self-appointed GOP insiders in thinking up excuses to exclude other Republicans from their club.
I am sad that the great history of the Illinois Republican Party since 1854 and its founding giants are now ignored by stupid people who have never even bothered to take the time to study first principles or why they are important and how they apply to policy today.
If you are an ordinary GOP primary voter and not a party insider, here below is a list of the 19 people who claim to speak in your name. If they continue to ignore your opinions and insult you as a second-class party member, why in the world would you ever donate money for them to waste on confusing and stupid messages that only hurt GOP candidates? Some day soon maybe more GOP voters will understand that there are two state central committees in Illinois that are both dedicated to hurting GOP principles and candidates who love those principles. Those two commitees are called the Democratic State Central Committee and the Republican State Central Committee. Here are the names of the 19 pretenders who have the chutzpah to claim to speak and vote and nominate and govern the state and national party in your name even though you have never directly voted for any of them. That is why SB 600 matters. Because until it is passed, this commitee will never again have the smae authentic legitimacy to speak in your name that the historic elected committee with the same name once had before 1988. If you want to try to find one of these unelected people to lobby them to vote for a conservative candidate for Senate nominee in the special election, just try to find them from the information below.
IRP Chairman Pat Brady told the press today he cannot speak in their name even as he already has spoken in their name and predicted they will rubber stamp RINO Mark Kirk. The irony is that Mark Kirk does have the legitimacy that this fake commitee does not have itself. He was nominated directly by GOP Primary voters in an election and they were not. Yet their votes will validate his candidacy? It is sad but does not matter to them that all of Kirk's lies about his resume and his terrible voting record were not known to most GOP primary voters last February.
The Great Pretenders:
List of Un-elected Illinois "Republican State Central Committee" Members
1st Congressional District
Steve Daglas
7400 Ishnala Dr.
Palos Heights, IL 60463
2nd Congressional District
Judy Diekelman
809 Cherry Lane
Thornton, IL 60476
3rd Congressional District
Angel Garcia
5235 S. Seeley
Chicago, IL 60609
4th Congressional District
Craig Pesek
1304 S. 60th Ct.
Cicero, IL 60804
5th Congressional District
Skip Saviano
7730 W. Belden Ave.
Elmwood Park, IL 60707
6th Congressional District
Chris Kachiroubas
479 Evergreen Ave.
Elmhurst, IL 60126
7th Congressional District
Carol Smith Donovan
800 N. Michigan Ave. #3603
Chicago, IL 60611
8th Congressional District
Eugene Dawson
808 Lill Street
Barrington, IL 60010
9th Congressional District
Jack Dorgan
6019 Scott St.
Rosemont, IL 60018
10th Congressional District
Tolbert Chisum
631 Park Drive
Kenilworth, IL 60043
11th Congressional District
Bobbie Peterson
2124 W. Church Rd.
Beecher, IL 60401
12th Congressional District
Deb Detmers Fansler
10 N. Center, PO Box 266
East Alton, IL 62024
13th Congressional District
Roger Claar
115 Concord Lane
Bolingbrook, IL 60440
14th Congressional District
Jim Oberweis
3 Buckingham Dr.
Sugar Grove, IL 60554
15th Congressional District
Jerry Clarke
406 E. Colorado Ave.
Urbana, IL 61801
16th Congressional District
Dave Syverson
6757 Flowerhill Rd.
Rockford, IL 61114
17th Congressional District
Judy Dudek
355 N. 4th
Canton, IL 61520
18th Congressional District
Mike Bigger
110 W. Butler St.
Wyoming, IL 61491
19th Congressional District
Bob Winchester
PO Box 208
Rosiclare, IL 62982
