More McHenry County Blog

Almost three-fourths of the precincts had no Democrat willing to go out and get 10 signatures to get on the ballot. The question remains whether Democratic Party precinct committeemen appointed by the party’s chairman after the primary will be willing to go door-to-door. (The same question exists, of course, for appointed GOP committeemen.)

Perhaps there is just not much at stake. Maybe being a precinct committeeman in either party is approaching irrelevancy because of the major candidates’ deep pockets. Mailings are coming from Republican gubernatorial and 8^th congressional district candidates. Television will dominate that congressional race primary, as well as the GOP and Democratic Party gubernatorial primaries. The same can be predicted for their general elections.

It is axiomatic that the less a voter knows about a candidate, the more likely a precinct worker is to be able to influence a vote. Perhaps it is in no one’s self-interest to recruit precinct committeeman candidates.

The Democrats have no candidates in the western tier of townships.

In the major townships, here are the totals:

• Algonquin Township – 17 candidates out of 66 precincts – just over a quarter covered.
• McHenry Township – only 5 out of 34 – under 15%.
• Nunda Township – 8 out of 29 – a slightly higher percentage than Algonquin Township.
• Grafton Township – 11 out of 22 – the best showing of the large townships at 50%.
• Dorr Township – 5 out of 14 – almost 36% with candidates.

There is one contest. School union member and former Crystal Lake city council candidate Patrick Murfin is being challenged by John Darger.

The most interesting candidate is Patrick Quimet, the wealthy lawyer from Bull Valley who challenged Pam Althoff for state senate last fall. He spent $992,000 in that race. Most came out of other people’s pockets. His candidacy is probably the reason that State Rep. Jack Franks did not file for committeeman.

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