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.


:((

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:

Bagboy


Employment Coming Soon

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.

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?"

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!

Sites to Behold

You heard it here first. The Internets are taking Lake County by storm. It was only yesterday it seems, that no one in the County had a computer. If anyone did, they were not online. And of the few that were online, they were dialing into AOL or Juno. Well those bygone days are a thing of the past! Nowadays your neighbor is fiber-wired into an OC3 hook-up for FWDing the kitten & polar bear jpegs to the grandkids.

Some forward thinking political minds see this as an opportunity to turn Lake County's sudden inter-connectivity into election-day votes. At least, that's the gist of this Daily Herald story from a couple of weeks ago ...

a year after Obama's historic election, candidates across the country - and throughout the Chicago suburbs - are using his high-tech model as a blueprint for their own political bids.
Candidates flock to social media to connect, influence

The Herald profiles State Senate hopeful Suzi Schmidt as one candidate seeking to leverage all the new media into political advantage. As Schmidt explains her web presence ...

There are a lot of ways to campaign, and this is just another mechanism.

The Herald story posts an image of Schmidt and her website:

Of course winning a election is not simply a matter of throwing together a website, count 3-2-1, and then good times! According to the Herald ...

"You can't just take a boilerplate (Web site) and run with it," said Bruce Newman, a DePaul University professor who specializes in political marketing and advertising. "It has to be integrated into the whole (mission) of the campaign."

The Herald fails to mention anything about boilerplate blogs, of which your LakeCountyEye will assume requires no explanation. But boilerplate websites are not hard to find either. For instance, local politician Suzi Schmidt has a webpage for her State Senate campaign ...

www.suzischmidt.com

And Schmidt's webpage is nearly indistinguishable from fellow State Senate candidate Dale Righter's webpage ...

www.righterforillinois.com

As fine an example of boilerplatedness as anyone could hope to see, in your LakeCountyEye's opinion. Now your LakeCountyEye does not know for sure who churned that particular generic page for Schmidt, but has a hunch it was someone working in the basement/recroom of the Illinois Republican State Senate Campaign Committee ...

www.ilsenategop.com

Well, your LakeCountyEye has more than just a hunch. A quick WHOIS on all three websites ...

www.suzischmidt.com
www.righterforillinois.com
www.ilsenategop.com

reveals the identity of their registrant:

Registrant:
Republican State Senate Campaign Committee
PO Box 3422
Springfield, Illinois 62708
United States

A heads-up to LakeCountyEye operatives -- suggestions on how Schmidt might improve her website can be forwarded to ...

Administrative Contact:
Cudney, Ryan rcudney@ilsenategop.com
Republican State Senate Campaign Committee
PO Box 3422
Springfield, Illinois 62708
United States
(217) 787-7550

Technical Contact:
Cudney, Ryan rcudney@ilsenategop.com
Republican State Senate Campaign Committee
PO Box 3422
Springfield, Illinois 62708
United States
(217) 787-7550

And as a bonus, your LakeCountyEye found another webpage registered to the Republican State Senate Campaign Committee ...

www.davidluechtefeld.com

Website coming soon. So true, so true.

This glimpse at an actual boilerplate webpage in incubation is a rare opportunity to observe how websites like these slowly emerge from the EtherNets and into our basement/recrooms. Kind of like gazing through the heavens at proto-galaxies in formation ...

... through the Hubble telescope.

F Words

Howard Dean is notorious for once telling FoxNews ...

I am tired of coming to the South and fighting elections on guns, God and gays.
Transcript: Howard Dean on 'FOX News Sunday'

If Dean were ever to set foot in Lake County¹, he would not find himself fighting the three Gs. He would be up against the three Fs:

Female, Famous & Funded

That seems to be the local political mantra, at least when it comes to the GOP. Your LakeCountyEye has noticed that every GOP recruiter parachuted into Lake County brings a checklist with three checkboxes at the top:

Female?
Famous?
Funded?

This well documented behavior typically occurs in situations where there is ...

1. An open or Democratically held seat
2. In a moderate or Republican-leaning district
3. Where the GOP has no one in the batting circle except wealthy middle-aged businessmen
4. More specifically, businessmen with little political experience but plenty of uber-right-wing 'tude

As everyone knows this is a sure-fire formula for disaster-at-the-polls².

So more often than not, the cooler heads that prevail are heard saying,

Criminy, we need to get a real candidate in there!

Which is about when a recruiter³ arrives with checklist and marching orders: Find a candidate who is a woman (female), with name recognition (famous), and can raise money (funded).

This is what happened last year in the 10th Congressional District. Some relevant details can be skimmed from this Chicago Tribune story ...

10th Congressional District election: GOP state Rep. Elizabeth Coulson wins endorsement from former U.S. Rep. John Porter
Also running in the Feb. 2 Republican primary are Kenilworth business owner Robert Dold, Highland Park pediatrician Arie Friedman, Winnetka business owner Richard Green and Lake Forest commodities and options trader Paul Hamann.

Meanwhile, over in Representative District 59, the prospective field was so weak they settled on someone who had already signed her opponent's nominating petition. The Daily Herald has the fallout of these 11th hour maneuverings ...

Hebda off ballot in state House District 59 race
Two other Republicans - attorney Dan Sugrue and business owner Mohan Manian, both of Green Oaks - also are on the ballot.

Finally, in the 8th Congressional District they've dropped all pretense. The Daily Herald reports how one candidate makes a virtue of necessity ...

Rodriguez says gender matters in GOP race
Six Republicans are seeking the party's nomination in the 8th District. They are: [Maria] Rodriguez; [Joe] Walsh, of Winnetka; Dirk Beveridge of Barrington; John Dawson of Barrington; Chris Geissler of Barrington; and Greg Jacobs of Mundelein.

Elizabeth Coulson, Cynthia Hebda and Maria Rodriguez all entered their contests late. In contrast to their primary opponents, gender-wise, the three are roses among thorns. All three are public office holders with at least a minimum of political experience. Presumably each has the necessaries to raise enough money to be competitive.

The LakeCountyEye magic crystal ball predicts that Coulson & Rodriguez will easily win their primaries. Hebda will win her primary if she is on the ballot. And has a reasonable chance of winning even if she is thrown off the ballot.

But local party rank-and-file support for each of the three, not surprisingly, is tepid at best. Most precinct committeemen do not want some outside power-broker deciding who should be on their ballot. So if Coulson or Rodriguez or Hebda expects to win in November, she will have to dance with the one who brung her.

---

¹Ha ha were you caught napping? Howard Dean was in Lake County last Halloween:

Tenth Dems Fundraiser hosting Gov. Howard Dean

Howard Dean Talks to the Illinois Tenth Congressional District Democrats

LakeCountyEye operatives are requested to make up their own Howard Dean/Halloween limerick here.

²Ha ha napping again? Not always a disaster:

Elect Dan Duffy

Ditto, btw, for Dan Duffy limericks.

³Surname: Criminy

Reality PayCheck

Who can forget (or remember) Patti Blagojevich's star appearance last year on reality show, I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here? Not to be outdone, Blagojevich's better (or worse) half, Rod Blagojevich, is scheduled to appear on Celebrity Apprentice -- the current incarnation of Donald Trump's Apprentice reality series. The Daily Herald has the details ...

Blagojevich competing on 'Celebrity Apprentice'

Your LakeCountyEye expects nothing less than to see Blagojevich and Trump in the cross-hairs, along with some hair-knuckled fisticuffs from the two media-savvy showmen.

There are enough reality shows presently on the air that it's been estimated that contestants now outnumber viewers. Your LakeCountyEye was skeptical on first seeing that factoid, however a check of the local listings did little to belie this unexpected statistic. Emboldened by our ex-Governor, a slew of Lake County luminaries have queued up to appear this season on the reality TeeVees. Your LakeCountyEye has tweeted up a few for the record:

• Hoping to seal his heterosexual bona fides,
  Mark Kirk will appear on ...
  Queer Eye for the Straight Guy



• Payback for losing his Senate parking place while being filmed by a red-light-cam,
  Dan Duffy will appear on ...
  Pimp My Ride



• She bargained the State's Attorney down from a criminal indictment to a promise to cover costs. Now let's talk about that ridiculous $2000 computer repair bill:
  Avon Township ex-Supervisor Shirley Christian will appear on ...
  Let's Make a Deal



• A gang of four who refused to refuse a $1500 pay raise.
  Diana Hewitt, Mary Ross Cunningham, Audrey Nixon, Angelo Kyle will appear on ...
  Who wants to be a Millionaire?



• The inspiration behind the Buffalo Grove recall ordinance,
  Lisa Stone will appear on ...
  Fire Me ... Please



• Counting the days before the Republicans re-take the Congress:
  Dirk Beveridge, Beth Coulson, John Dawson, Bob Dold, Arie Friedman, Chris Geissler, Dick Green, Paul Hamann, Greg Jacobs, Maria Rodriguez, Joe Walsh will compete for a winner-take-all appearance on ...
  Flip That House



• Never say never.
  Terry Link will appear on ...
  The Casino



• How to top last year's stunt of spending a week in your own jail? Easy, this time throw away the key.
  Mark Curran will appear on ...
  Jail Break



• Former Mark Kirk Deputy District Director & Kirk surroundee,
  Aaron Lawlor will appear on ...
  American High



• A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.
  Your LakeCountyEye will appear on ...
  Unsolved Mysteries

Your LakeCountyEye is ready for the close-up, Mr DeMille.

99% Perspiration and 1% Inspiration

Despite a competitive 10th Congressional primary, political ground zero at TeamAmerica's blog has lately been Senate candidate Mark Kirk. Kirk and his wife Kimberly Vertolli divorced last year. Vertolli posted some comments today on TeamAmerica. (TeamAmerica vouched for the identity of the poster.) Vertolli's comments are spirited appeals in support of her ex-husband. One statement confides that Kirk is ...

"100% heterosexual"
Looking Ahead in 2010

Just for the record, in politics the magic number is 50 percent plus 1.

Back Pedaling

WØØt it's 2010! And not a minute too soon. Whether the new year is called Two Thousand and Ten or Twenty Aught Ten, your LakeCountyEye did manage to make it out of bed before the first sunset of the new decade. This is the time of year that Internet bloggers make their predictions. Fearing no new-year ritual, no matter how corny, your LakeCountyEye is eager to engage in some shoot-from-the-hip palmistry if for nothing other than a lack of anything better to write about.

Of course accurately foretelling what the next decade will hold is not as easy as it sounds. The secret is to know in advance what sort of name the decade will be called. Were the new decade called -- just for example -- the roaring twenties, then it is quite easy to guess what will unfold the next ten years. But given a decade with a name like the psychedelic sixties, a much different fate awaits. Likewise for a decade called something like the gay nineties -- which happens to be where your LakeCountyEye's money is going.

If Andy Martin's new radio ad is any sign of things to come, prepare yourself for the gay teens ...

Lake County Illinois Republican leader Ray True says [Mark] Kirk has surrounded himself with homosexuals.
Transcript from the Political Ad

Internet Powerhouse® Andy Martin is entwined in a mano-a-mano struggle with Mark Kirk for the Republican US Senate nomination. Raymond True, honcho of the Republican Assembly of Lake County, however has back pedaled himself from Martin's ad -- telling the Chicago Tribune he did not say mean things about Mark Kirk ...

"I never said Mark was a homosexual and there's no evidence to that fact," True said in a telephone interview.
Rep. Mark Kirk's sexual orientation questioned in GOP opponent's ad

True was being truthful. Technically he did not call Kirk a homosexual. What True said was ...

It's more or less an open secret in Lake County that Mark [Kirk] has surrounded himself with people that have I guess they call it now a special orientation but we all know what that means.
Should we sell out our principles for Obama-lite Republicans?

Despite True's protestation, Martin's ad is still pretty close to what True actually did say.

Your LakeCountyEye is nothing if not an aficionado of finely parsed weasel words. So if there is a loophole big enough for True to wriggle through, it has to be the phrase special orientation.

Let's admit that Kirk does in fact surround himself with people of a special orientation. But, contra True, not everyone knows what that phrase -- special orientation -- means. At least not your LakeCountyEye. It is not obvious that special orientation means homosexual. Especially not after consulting the Googels -- which delivers a variety of special orientation hits. A random sampling:

"10:00AM Advance At Work Special Orientation (by appt)"
Workforce QUEENS Career Center

Here a special orientation is being held for job seekers.

"Special Orientation Control of the Thrust Vector in Optimization Problems of Rocket Dynamics"
Russian Academy of Science: MAIK Nauka/Interperiodica

Something to do with the special orientation of rocket scientists?

"To specify a special orientation of an aperture, slit, aperture pair, etc."
Space Telescope Science Institute

Telescopes need special orientation too!

"Special orientation for cross-institutional students"
University of Queensland

It's anyone's guess what the Ozzies are ever talking about.

"No special orientation other than the fruit lying flat was required."
An algorithm for distinguishing apples from bananas

It is good to know that fruit do not require any special orientation.

"you can attend a special orientation designed for GLBT tourists"
Gay Paris in Summertime

This one speaks for itself.

As is plainly evident, the phrase special orientation is some coded buzzword that can mean just about anything to anyone. For all your LakeCountyEye knows, Raymond True has a special orientation for sticking his foot in his mouth. We all know what that means.