Candidates Forum

[Ted]

 The best of part of last night's candidate's forum was the debate between Hernandez and Reyes.

Some other things from last night:

1. Congressional debate - The "debate" between Lipinski aide Jerry Herkes, neo-Nazi Arthur Jones and Farah Baqai bordered on a bizarre form of Kabuki Theatre.  Jones had some of his neo-Nazi thug pals planted in the audience asking the questions to Baqai and Jones would then back up her answer.  Herkes just gave non-responsive responses with a goofy grin on his face.

  One of the Nazi plants in the audience was wearing Nazi war boots and continuously taking pictures of Jones with a Kodak. The only thing missing was the swastika.  The whole scene seemed like a scene out of a bad Mel Brooks movie.

2. Dorothy Brown - Cook County Clerk of the Circuit Court appeared and re-counted her years in office since 2000. She claimed that there was no email when she took office and that she brought technology into the office, including being able to see documents online.  She also talked about millions of dollars that was available to people going through foreclosures.

  A plant in the audience asked her about her house burning down.  But, the oppposition's plant in the audience asked her whether it was legal to use her office space for raising funds, which she seemed embarrassed to answer.

3. Steve Landek - The third speaker of the night was State Senator Steve Landek. He avowed that he was a career politician who understood local government and how Springfield affected local government. He touted that he would be a "constituent services" kind of state senator.

  He is currently mayor of Bridgeview and Lyons Township Democratic Committeeman.  He talked about the fact that he voted against the Sears bailout.  He didn't have many good ideas on solving the pension crisis.

4. Lisa Hernandez and Robert Reyes - I documented this in another thread:

http://www.berwyntalk.com/smf/index.php?topic=11922.msg201666#msg201666

Some last thoughts - There was a FBI-looking guy who stood outside the chamber all night talking into a microphone on the lapel of his jacket.  I wondered  who he was and why he was there.

  I wondered why does the DCOB crowd always sit in the last 2 rows on the left side of the chamber?

  Finally, at the end of their debate, as Reyes went to shake Lisa Hernandez' hand, she smiled at him and then shook her finger at him.

[Ted]

One other thing that really bothered me last night was all the plants in the audience asking the questions.

Neo-Nazi Jones, Dorothy Brown, Lisa Hernandez and Robert Reyes all had plants in the audience that asked questions.

I think that is why questions submitted on paper to a moderator is a better approach than taking questions at random from the audience.

[Homebody]

"Finally, at the end of their debate, as Reyes went to shake Lisa Hernandez' hand, she smiled at him and then shook her finger at him."

I was close enough to the candidates when this happened and heard what was said. Lisa Hernandez told Robert Reyes to leave her campaign signs alone. Seems someone is putting stickers on Hernandez campaign signs that read "Paid for by ComEd" in reference to the campaign cash she has taken from that company and her vote in favor of the ComEd rate increases.

Rep. Hernandez brought up the sign sticker issue just before their portion of the forum ended when Reyes said Hernandez signs are on vacant foreclosed homes. Rep. Hernandez said her campaign has permission from the owners of all the homes where her signs appear. She then said Reyes workers were putting the stickers on her signs followed by the comment that that's what campaign money is for...to buy signs."

[OakParkSpartan]

So we are to believe that Hernandez's campaign has contacted the banks?  LOL. 

Just another reason to vote for Reyes.