Sunday, January 31, 2010

Far Out in Left Field

Your LakeCountyEye has spilt a lot of ink the past few days over the Republican Eighth Congressional District primary. Few know that there is also a primary on the Democratic side. And by primary your LakeCountyEye means a contested election. The only name on the Democratic ballot of course is Congresswoman Melissa Bean's. But Jonathan Farnick is running as a write-in. If the name sounds familiar, Farnick filed petitions to get on the Democratic ballot. However the paperwork was so poorly executed -- a page or two shy of the minimum -- that Democratic operatives couldn't resist the opportunity to have Farnick tossed off.

Farnick is now back as a certified Democratic write-in candidate. For the curious, Farnick has a website ...
tofubo
the goal of which, as far as your LakeCountryEye can tell, is to push the envelope of the typical Eighth Congressional District candidate's website.

Farnick's web content is short on punctuation and capital letters and long on boilerplate talking points borrowed from the likes of Ed Schultz, Thom Hartmann, Keith Olbermann. A note to operatives: when your LakeCountyEye wants the latest Keith Olbermann talking point, your LakeCountyEye goes to Keith Olbermann. Olbermann has a sense of humor.

Here is Farnick on last week's Supreme Court decision, Citizens United v FEC ...
this ruling overrules two previous supreme court decisions, invalidates numerous federal and state laws going back to 1907, gives free speech rights to artificial entities that didn't get 'personhood' until 1886, and allows for foreign owned corporations or their wholly-owned domestic subsidiaries to weigh in on domestic elections

like i said, phucque

phucque
PHUCQUE, of course, is how FEC is phonetically pronounced.

LakeCountyEye operatives everywhere are encouraged to vent their frustrations at the ballot box by throwing away their vote on a write-in candidate. For those who wish to do so to the benefit of Mr Farnick, your LakeCountyEye has obtained a helpful guide from Team-Farnick ...

Voting is a lot like filing a ballot petition -- the devil is in the details! Of course your LakeCountyEye is by no means endorsing Farnick or any other candidate in the Eighth Congressional District. For those who are wondering, your LakeCountyEye has already voted.
Every vote cast is a vote cast for Democracy. The primary election is next Tuesday, Feb 2.

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Walshed Out

Your LakeCountyEye admits being sadly washed up as a political prognosticator. On Thursday this blog predicted in ...
Son of Walsh v Walsh
that candidate Joe Walsh's video hommage to guitarist Joe Walsh would be scrubbed off the Internet on Feb 3. Well the video was gone as of Friday -- uh-huh, yesterday. Granted, the difference between actual the predicted dates was just 5 days -- a mere hiccup -- when measured in geological time. But in the extremely dilated space-time continuum known as the week-before-the-election, a difference of 5 days is like mistaking the Cretaceous for the Carboniferous. What went wrong?

YouTube is what went wrong. Your LakeCountyEye did not think that candidate Walsh would bother to remove the video from his website until after the election. However his website was linked to the video via YouTube.
Joe Walsh For Congress Lead the Way Music Video
And YouTube will bounce a disputed video faster than you can say Church of Scientology.

The removal of the video from YouTube cascaded over to candidate Walsh's website, and the webpage is now lost in cloud somewhere ...

Our new music video - Lead The Way
leaving in its place a 404 Error. An aside, a 404 Error seems a tad harsh for a busted YouTube link -- just sayin!

Anyways, the Daily Herald noticed ...
Political video no longer on Joe Walsh Web site
and got Walsh to say the video will be back on the web site in a few days.

Now, any 12 year old with an AOL account knows enough HTML to be able to EMBED an MP3 on a webpage. This is not paleobiology. Team-Walsh hasn't bothered to try, as of this writing (they probably have more pressing business). That and the fact that the election is Feb 2, and that you'd be ill-advised to bet more than a sack of washers on on Walsh's chances, leads your LakeCountyEye to predict that the video will be AWOL for the very long term. Think geological time.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Son of Walsh v Walsh

The latest wrinkle has emerged from the wash known as Joe Walsh vs Joe Walsh. For those who haven't heard about the recent 8th Congressional District flapdoodle, see ...
Walsh v Walsh
it's too complicated to explain here.

The Joes Walsh
Now with 50% More Walshes!

Guitar Player

Politician (USA)

Politician (Ireland)

Today Walsh-the-politician fired back with an open letter posted on his website to Walsh-the-guitar-player.
Open Letter to Joe Walsh (the rockstar) from Joe Walsh (the candidate)
The letter (actually addressed to Walsh-the-guitar-player's attorney) is mostly a long ramble peppered with good lawyer words like "First Amendment", "fair use", "parody", and "so's your old man." The word "freedom" also shows up a lot -- and "Hollywood" too. The letter more-or-less requests Walsh-the-guitar-player's attorney to talk-to-the-hand. The NewsSun has all the latest details ...
Candidate Walsh won't 'Walk Away'
about Walsh-the-politician's campaign video. Your LakeCountyEye predicted the parody video will not be taken down until Feb 3. Your LakeCountyEye stands by that prediction.

The original cease-and-desist letter was dated Jan 26. The story broke the next day, Jan 27, in the NewsSun ...
Walsh to Walsh: Just 'Walk Away'
complete with an online scan of the letter. Your LakeCountyEye had suspected an inside job -- no law firm is going to leak a cease-and-desist letter to the press -- someone in the Walsh campaign must've been hoping to churn up some last minute election buzz. This however was a misreading of the LakeCountyEye tea leaves (LakeCountyChai).

In some mystery stories the culprit is the obvious suspect, the butler. In this case the butler is the NewsSun itself! The NewsSun (perhaps inadvertently) fessed up today -- actually it was the News Hound who signaled your LakeCountyEye was barking up the wrong tree. The NewsSun ...
asked Joe Walsh the rock star's people what they thought of the tune, and the result was the letter to Walsh and his campaign from an Avenue of the Stars, Los Angeles, law firm that threatened to sue the campaign for copyright and trademark violations if the music video does not disappear.
Sour notes
A spokesperson for Walsh-the-politician has said they learned about the letter in the media -- and are still waiting to receive it!

This all points to the sort of political conspiracy no conspiracy theorist worth their Kenyan birth certificate can pass up. It is unlikely the Waukego-centric NewsSun would have initiated this sort of investigation on its own volition -- for reasons too obvious & numerous to mention. Some external impetus must've been involved.

High among likely suspects would be Walsh's political enemies. The video does have a line about Nancy Pelosi and Melissa Bean -- and if Walsh wins the primary he would be Bean's opponent in the general election. However your LakeCountyEye predicts that Bean will cakewalk across the finish line in November with 60% of the vote -- no matter who her Republican opponent is. And your LakeCountyEye suspects the Bean-team is secretly hoping they get to run against another McSweeney/Greenberg class of candidate like Joe Walsh.

Next on the list of Walsh's political enemies is Green candidate, Bill Scheurer. Next!

Next on the list of Walsh's political enemies are his Republican primary opponents. There are so many of them your LakeCountyEye has a hard time remembering their names. Long Grove mayor Maria Rodriguez is probably the frontrunner, and if any of them would be the target of a political dirty-trick it would've been Rodriguez. Regarding the Republican field in general, they all would have a motive -- but is there the will and the wherewithal? The magic crystal ball says Reply hazy try again.

Finally, there are some mysteries where the perpetrator is not revealed to the reader until the final chapter. Stay tuned.

The Matts Murphy

Blues Brothers/1980

McKenna-Murphy/2010

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Walsh v Walsh

One running gag your LakeCountyEye has been milking -- with questionable success -- is aimed at Eighth Congressional District candidate Joe Walsh. More specifically the gag depends on the 100% similarity between Walsh's appellation and that of Eagles guitar player Joe Walsh.

The joke made its debut last September in ...
A Fresh Face in the 8th Congressional District
where both Joe Walsh and Joe Walsh garnered your LakeCountyEye's attention. And reappeared this month in ...
Tour de Endorsements
where Joe Walsh scored Joe Walsh's endorsement.

The Joes Walsh

Guitar Player

Politician

Either not to be outdone or not wanting to allow a good idea go to waste, the Joe Walsh1 campaign posted a video ...
Our new music video - Lead The Way
on their website. The music video is a cover of Walk Away -- a James Gang-era Joe Walsh2 composition. The video has new lyrics and a new title and was apparently commissioned to promote the Joe Walsh3 campaign.


Joe Walsh For Congress
Lead the Way Music Video


Sometimes art initiates life. While your LakeCountyEye parodies life -- well, sometimes. But as far as your LakeCountyEye can sort it out, this is a particular case of (a) Joe Walsh4 imitating (b) Joe Walsh5 by copying (c) your LakeCountyEye6 parodying (d) Joe Walsh7 by parodying (e) Joe Walsh8. The mind of your LakeCountyEye boggles ... and digresses.

Understandably proud, Joe Walsh9 promoted the video on both Twitter and FaceBook.

Understandably aggrieved, upon getting wind of all this, attorneys representing Joe Walsh10 fired off a cease-and-desist letter to Joe Walsh11. Can this l'affaire contretemps get any more complicated? Luckily the NewsSun broke and admirably covered the story ...
Walsh to Walsh: Just 'Walk Away'
this morning.

According to your LakeCountyEye's reckoning the video appeared on YouTube last Wednesday. The the cease-and-desist letter is dated yesterday. While the NewsSun story appeared today, complete with a posted scan of the letter. This is a remarkably brief interval of time, which makes your LakeCountyEye suspect an inside job. Perhaps an attempt to gin up some 11th hour buzz? It's garnered your LakeCountyEye's attention already -- mission accomplished!

For the record, the Joe Walsh12 campaign has not yet issued a response. The magic crystal ball predicts the video will be removed Feb 3. But don't neglect to read the letter posted at the NewsSun -- a masterwork of shark-snark:
As a candidate for Congress, you probably have a passing familiarity with many of the laws of this great country of ours. It's possible, though, that laws governing intellectual property are a little too arcane and insufficiently populist for you to really have spent much time on. We're writing because we think laws are important, and it might be beneficial to your potential future career as a congressman if you were more aware of them.
CONTENTS OF LETTER dated January 26, 2010
LOLOL, your LakeCountyEye couldn't have said it better.

The sad fact of the matter is your LakeCountyEye couldn't have said it better. Which goes a long way toward explaining why your LakeCountyEye isn't making six or seven figures representing semi-retired guitar bands. But instead fills (non-billable) hours writing blog posts in the basement of the parental-unit. And in the LakeCountyEye pajamas. A cautionary tale to any LakeCountyEye operative contemplating dropping out of school.

1Politician
2Guitar Player
3Politician
4Politician
5Guitar Player
6Internet Satirist
7Politician
8Guitar Player
9Politician
10Guitar Player
11Politician
12Politician

Sunday, January 24, 2010

FaceBooks & Twitters & Blogs -- Oh My!

A week or two back, your LakeCountyEye took a jaundiced look at the Daily Herald's deadpan look at the intersection between the new media and local politics:
Sites to Behold
IL Senate candidate Suzi Schmidt's generic Internet website was plugged by the Herald as a paradigm example of how local politicians are leveraging some of the new media to their advantage ...
Candidates flock to social media to connect, influence
Of course no Internet story is complete without at least mentioning some old Web 2.0 mainstays like eMail-marketing, YouTube, MySpace, FaceBook, Twitter, Flickr, blogs. The Herald delivered, taking a glancing look at how campaign-Schmidt has adapted to these new-media web outlets -- complete with links.

Your LakeCountyEye is nothing if not a skeptic and a procrastinator. Although the Herald story hit the newsstands more than three weeks ago, your LakeCountyEye has just gotten around to calling Herald's bluff and paid a visit this weekend to Suzi Schmidt's Twitter and FaceBook pages.

Campaigns like to keep the voters up-to-date and involved in the election process. Your LakeCountyEye decided to get the skinny from Schmidt's latest Twitter tweet:

Busy getting petition signatures this weekend, Zion Jubilee Days events this weekend include the parade on Monday, Labor Day. See you there.
11:00 AM Aug 31st, 2009 from web
Ah, those were the days, your LakeCountyEye remembers the Zion Jubilee Days quite well. Like it was only yesterday. Back then in aught-nine, you had to catch the ferry to Shelbyville, which is what they called Zion in those days. So your LakeCountyEye tied an onion to our belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. Gimme five bees for a quarter, you'd say ...

... but your LakeCountyEye digresses.

One can tell a candidate by the company they keep, which is where FaceBook comes in. FaceBook was originally an, ahem, social networking site for college students -- but has morphed into a marketing tool for all sorts of endeavors, not the least being political campaigns.

Your LakeCountyEye prefers to see the pictures first, and when visiting FaceBook always goes before anything else to the albums. Schmidt's FaceBook page offers a photo album with the name ...
Camapaign [sic] Trail
where we're invited to ...
Follow Suzi as she campaigns to take back the 31st Senate District!
Added about 5 months ago
Judging from the album's content, there hasn't been much camapaigning to follow these past 5 months. This pace will no doubt accelerate as we near the November election. There is also a nice, albeit lonesome shout-out from local power broker, Fernando Salazar.

Schmidt's FaceBook page boasts some 200 friends. A well-rounded collection including the famous and the near-famous as well as sundry others.

A random sampling of Suzi Schmidt's actual FaceBook friends have been culled by your LakeCountyEye ...



Paul Mitchell
is going door-to-door, followed by events this afternoon & evening. Get caught up in the campaign! http://paulfor62.com #tcot #prolife.
Does Sandy Cole know who your friends are?



Joe Walsh
Joe Cantafio, lead singer 101st Rock Division, will play our new campaign song Lead the Way on the Geoff Pinkus show Sunday night from 5PM -7PM on AM 560 WIND. Please tune in for Joe Cantafio's interview and listen to our rally call!11 hours ago
Your LakeCountyEye was sort of hoping for Hotel California.



Aaron Lawlor
United States Congress
It's nice to see Lawlor got that promotion from a boring County Board gig.



Ed Sullivan
knows that when you put down a 67,038 expenditure for computer consultants instead of 670.38 on a campaign finance report that it is time for a break.
At least it wasn't on an assessor's report!



Angie Wallberg
Has anyone got that e-mail where you are supposed to put your name next to your birthday, the intent being a list with someone's birthday for each day of the year? Hello! If I put my name on the list - how are the other nine people the mailer sent it to going to know that I did? 10 sent, each sending to 10 more, then 10 more......there will be a million lists by the end of the year - none of them complete! :)).
Try asking Ed Sullivan -- he's good with figures.



Bob Wallberg
Nothing like bowling with the Grandkids.
Your LakeCountyEye hears ya. Loud & clear.



Larry Falbe
Does anyone know who this guy is?



Louis G. Atsaves
Good luck on that primary -- ballot position isn't everything.



Maria Rodriguez
Sharing war stories with fellow mayors at the Lake Zurich Chamber of Commerce awards dinner.
Marian Rodriguez
I am looking for the following recipes: posole, menudo and green pork tamales. I would love someone to give me the following recipes that are family recipes. I would also take a mole recipe!
Were there any leftovers at the Chamber dinner?



Milton Jensen
Enough playing games Widen Greenbay road from the State line to Sunset. Politics clog highways,.
Mayor Rodriguez recommends the Route 53 bypass.



Patrick Carlson
I'll never understand how someone be 15 minutes away for 45 minutes...
Enough with the math problems!



Steve Carlson
The magic crystal ball says: was it perhaps a 45 minute lunch with the Mayor?



Mayor Kristina Kovarik
Excellent turnout for Coffee with the Mayor this morning at K-Sweets in the WNPL. Thanks K-Sweets for hosting and a very special thank you to all the residents who stopped to talk today. It was really nice to be joined by County Board Commissioner Steve Carlson. I really enjoy hearing from our residents!
Your LakeCountyEye thought so.



Pamela Althoff
Pamela Althoff
Fun with Fotomat!



Dan Venturi
How's the witness protection program working out?



Sherry Ridge
Make a will. Personally I recommend trusts, either way the only law firm I personally back is Harter & Schottland, visit www.Gotcourt.com, if they don't have what you need, still call and ask for a referral. I trust only them with my life and my children's and family. Why? They care! They know good people can make bad choices!!!
So true. So true.



Toby Mussman Smithson
We are three weeks into the New Year, are you still maintaining your Healthy lifestyle resolution?
Your LakeCountyEye prefers to keep a trust, and recommends Harter & Schottland. Good people can make bad choices.



Rich Miller
Party's over, people -- Miller is writing it all down.


:((

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Employment Deployment

IL District 51 Representative & Fremont Township Assessor, Ed Sullivan Jr has been named to the House Bipartisan Job Creation Task Force. The News-Sun quotes Sullivan:
"We have double-digit unemployment here at home, and something needs to get done."
SULLIVAN APPOINTED
It's an open question how much of that double-digit unemployment is a consequence of double-dipping elected officials. But your LakeCountyEye digresses. The News-Sun reports that the Task Force will ...
hold hearings across the state and bring new ideas on how to attract and retain well-paying jobs.
Your LakeCountyEye is nothing if not civic-minded. As well as gainfully unemployed. Job seekers and task force deployees alike, you need look no farther than your LakeCountyEye. Your LakeCountyEye is an avid reader of the CraigsList -- Jobs section -- get your mind out of the gutter, peoples. Herewith are ten well-paying jobs the Job Creation Task Force can bring to Illinois:

Bagman


New positions opening!
Voter Registrar


Lake County Clerk, Asian Carp Division
Bean Counter


Apply Eighth Congressional District
Video Game Designer


State of Illinois, Division of Video Poker
Red-Light Camera Operator


Route 53 Extension
Handwriting Analyst


Apply Vernon Township Democrats or Citizens for Cindy Hebda
Fact Checker


Contact: Andy Martin for US Senator
Fundraising Consultant


Apply Lake County Republican Federation
Contact: JoAnn Osmond, 976 Hillside Avenue, Antioch IL
847-838-6200, ask for Linda Pedersen
Blogger


Earn more $$$ than a Lake County Board Commissioner!
... from the comfort of your basement ... and pajamas!

If it's good enough for Hef, it's good enough for your LakeCountyEye.

Monday, January 18, 2010

Em/pediments

Your LakeCountyEye reported a week or two ago on a political phenomena -- F Words -- that has been observed on numerous occasions this election season. Briefly, it is a volatile political situation where:
  1. There is an open or Democratically held seat on the ballot.
  2. The seat is in a moderate or Republican-leaning district.
  3. The declared GOP contenders for the seat are wealthy middle-aged businessmen.
  4. The businessmen have little political experience and a far-right agenda.
When this situation occurs a "cinderella" candidate -- usually a women with name recognition and good at raising money -- often will be recruited to salvage the election. These candidates are sometimes described with F words -- [f]emale, [f]amous and [f]unded. Their opponents will disparagingly refer to the primary as one that is Fed-up (pronunciation: eff dup).

It is a basic principle of physics that every phenomenon observed has its inverse -- like anti-matter or like Newton's 3rd Law of Motion. With politics being no different than physics, the inverse of an Fed-up primary can occur when:
  1. There is a Republican held seat on the ballot.
  2. The seat is in a moderate or Republican-leaning district.
  3. The seat is held by a moderate Republican woman.
When this situation occurs then a right-of-center businessman will sometimes emerge to challenge the incumbent in the Republican primary. These challengers usually have little political experience and are often employed somewhere in the middle of the corporate food-chain. They can also be described by initials, in this case M words -- [m]ale, [m]iddle-[m]anagement, [m]ovement-conservative, [m]aladroit. The incumbents often regard these challengers as trespassers upon what rightly belongs to them. And they think of themselves as being M-peded upon. (pronunciation: em peed).

An M-peded primary can currently be observed in Rep District 62, where incumbent Sandy Cole is being challenged by Paul Mitchell. The Daily Herald caught up with the two at a candidate forum ...
Two Republican state representative candidates showed their differences in a Grayslake forum Sunday afternoon and no words were minced when the first question arrived. State Rep. Sandy Cole of Grayslake will face Paul Mitchell of Hainesville in the Feb. 2 primary. The winner will face Democrat Rich Voltair of Round Lake Beach in the November general election to represent the 62nd House District.
Tension arises at 62nd House forum
A mirror image replay of Rep 62 can be witnessed down in Rep District 54, where incumbent Suzie Bassi is being challenged in the primary by Tom Morrison. The Daily Herald again was on top of a volatile situation ...
Meanwhile, Morrison, a small-business owner who also lives in Palatine, says there's a growing discontent with incumbents and describes Bassi as an elected official who makes a lot of noise but avoids taking sides on controversial issues.
Bassi, Morrison spar over record in House 54 primary
A search through the archives reveal some past instances of M-peded primaries:
  • In 2008 businessman Kirk Denz challenged incumbent Bonnie Thomson Carter for County Board 6.
  • In 2006 businessman Scott Helton challenged incumbent Susan Loving Gravenhorst for County Board 13.
  • Also in 2006 businessman Denny Driscoll challenged incumbent Mark Beaubien for State Rep 52. (Beaubien is a male which technically would disqualify this as an instance of an M-peded primary. However Beaubien is strongly pro-choice; Beaubien's wife is the recipient of a Choice Leadership Award from Personal PAC. A case could be argued that Beaubien is an honorary female.)
In none of these past instances was the incumbent defeated at the polls. However, 2010 may be a watershed year for conservative candidates. If there is a low turnout on Feb 2, there may be some local upsets.

Temper may be expected to be in short supply whenever moderate candidates square off against principled candidates. Not surprisingly this is the precise case that obtains in both Fed-up and M-peded primary contests. Your LakeCountyEye recently overheard one frustrated party boss ask no one in particular, "Just how many of these M/F's are on the ballot?"

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Tour de Endorsements

It's less than three weeks before Primary day, Tuesday Feb 2. Which is about that time most candidates ramp-up and start doing things -- like stealing yardsigns and collecting endorsements -- in lieu of actual campaigning. This year is no exception, at least when it comes to endorsements. The new crop of endorsements has some familiar names as well as some surprises. Your LakecountyEye has compiled a representative sample:

The big endorsement coup this cycle goes to Robert Dold (R/Congress 10). Dold got Dan Quayle's endorsement. For LakeCountyEye operatives too young or buried too deep in the witness protection program to remember the late 1980s, Dan Quayle was a US Vice President. Quayle is better known as a GOP gift to Internet satire, emeritus.

Dold's leading opponent, Elizabeth Coulson (R/Congress 10), was apparently not to be outdone. Coulson announced her own heavyweight endorsement, John Porter.

John Porter? Erm, well perhaps Coulson was outdone.

Travelling cross-county, over to the other side of the proposed Rte 53, Maria Rodriguez (R/Congress 8) picked up an endorsement from far right-field. Rodriguez is endorsed by Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum. The Eagle Forum is an organization that could take the teabaggers to school.

Joe Walsh (R/Congress 8) is Rodriguez's purportedly nearest opponent. Walsh, not to be outdone either, is endorsed by The Eagles.
Ev'ry night when the sun goes down
Just another lonely boy in town
And she's out runnin' 'round

Moving on to the actual House of Representatives, Melissa Bean (D/Congress 8) picked up a not surprising endorsement. Bean, who serves on the House Financial Services Committee, has been endorsed by Bedford Falls's own Mr Potter.

Back down the ballot, perennial candidate Ed Sullivan Jr (R/IL Rep 51) gets an unexpected hand up from one endorser. This election, Sullivan has been endorsed by sock puppet Topo Gigio.

State Senator Terry Link (D/Lt Governor) is seeking to be our next Lieutenant Governor. Link was last sighted noshing on rubber eggs at a downstate Pekin IL Chamber of Commerce breakfast, where he was endorsed by the Missing Link.

County Board Chair Suzi Schmidt (R/IL Senate 31) did not see an expected pay raise this year. To make up for the lost income, Schmidt is running for State Senate. It comes as no surprise that Schmidt has been endorsed by Johnny Paycheck.

Willard Helander (R/Lake Co Clerk) is nationally known for registering a goldfish to vote in Lake County. Which reeled in for Helander an endorsement from Glenn Beck.

Dan Seals (D/Congress 10) is normally endorsed by country musician Dan Seals. However the endorsement did not materialize this year, for two reasons. First, your LakeCountyEye played the endorsed-by-a-guitar-player-with-the-same-name gag once already. (See Joe Walsh above.) But second and more importantly, Seals (the musician) is deceased as of last year. Note to LakeCountyEye operatives: in politics have a Plan-B ready. Since this marks Seals's 7th attempt in the 10th Congressional District, Dan Seals was endorsed in the movie The Seventh Seal.

Amidst deporting undocumented aliens and denying accusations of racial profiling, Mark Curran (R/Lake Co Sheriff) picked up a needed endorsement from a fellow law enforcement officer. Curran got the endorsement of Frank "Ponch" Poncherello, a proven favorite with ethnic voters of generic origin.

Last but not least, the endorsements for Congressman Mark Kirk (R/US Senate) have come piling in like a mosh pit at a Jesus Lizard show. Most noteworthy, Top Gun Mark Kirk has been endorsed by Hollywood hunk Tom Cruise.

Your LakeCountyEye will post updates on news of any new endorsements -- irregardless real or fake -- as soon as they come in.

Special Endorsement Contest!
Three of the endorsements posted here are real. The rest are made up. Or was it three are the fakes? Whatever. Guess the real endorsements and win a fabulous prize. No, the prize is not a coveted LakeCountyEye endorsement -- that and a cup of coffee will get you a trip to the bathroom. Post your contest submissions to Goldline International. Winning entries will receive a FREE investor kit today!