A Week to go

The week prior to Election Day got off to a big start. We left Springfield Monday morning to go back up north - this time, to the actual City of Chicago, to a fundraiser featuring U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ), for the campaign of David McSweeney, the Republican congressional candidate in those two key U.S. House races (the 8th and 6th districts).

I think that this was an expensive fundraiser, but through a deal arranged by the College Republican National Committee (CRNC), we received complimentary admissions. One non-UIS CR was there also, who we got to meet. Brett Kotecki went on to start a College Republicans chapter at the College of DuPage.

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We got their early, and therefore got to choose a good table... They asked if we would be willing to move one over though, because the front & center table was meant for the press... We obliged, but we were still up in the front. Towards the end of the Q & A session following his speech, Senator McCain specifically referred to us.

He didn't say "College Republicans" though... He called us "these young punks"... ;-)


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After the event was over, we had a short amount of time for photos... I did get to talk to former Illinois Republican Party Chairman Gary McDougal, conservative commentator Tom Roeser, then-IL Attorney General candidate Stu Umholtz, and several other prominent Illinoisans.

We spoke to Illinois GOP State Central Committeewoman MaryAlice Erickson, who was wondering (as were others) why we were up in Chicago, for an event for congressional candidate David McSweeney [a four-hour drive from Springfield]. I told her that, thanks to the College Republican National Committee, we have been making several trips up north, to help with these races. But one year earlier - in November 2005, when there were no elections in Illinois - we sent our members to different states... Some went to the state of Virginia, to help out with the key Governor's election (our candidate was Jerry Kilgore), while others of us went to Missouri, to help with a special election for State Representative (the candidate was Moira Byrd).

Ms. Erickson was quite impressed, and said that our UIS CR chapter should be used, as a model for other CR chapters in Illinois...


We then went to the Roskam for Congress campaign headquarters (he was the other key U.S. House candidate, mentioned above, and in past entries), and did phone banking. The phone banking was for the upcoming event to take place on Thursday, when First Lady Laura Bush was going to be in Schaumberg, for a rally with our Illinois Republican candidates.

On the ride home, I was doing my own "phonebanking," to let people know about that event, and about the two events on the two preceding days (the next day, Tuesday, was our College Republicans meeting, and day after that, Wednesday, was our reception with Sheriff Neil Williamson, who was in a contested re-election battle).