Our January print edition featured an article about a bloc of candidates championing reform, transparency, term limits and pretty much everything else voters might hope for in Cook County government.
They included candidates for County Board, the MWRD and assessor. While voters may have waved goodbye to Todd Stroger, they weren’t quite ready to welcome in this crop of lesser-known contenders.
Not one of the upstarts we profiled in January came out victorious, despite their unified push and that the candidates, who published their bloc on their Web site, www.changecookcounty.com, garnered endorsements from the area’s major media outlets.
Todd Connor was running for MWRD commissioner. He got every major endorsement from local media outlets, unions, politicians and civic groups. He’s young, good-looking, outgoing and adamant that it’s possible to foment change.
But he came in fifth out of nine candidates. His loss and those of his colleagues stung, he says.
“It’s disappointing. We had great alternative choices for the people that we had in office,” he says. “Sadly, I think a lot of the same people who complain about their taxes being too high or corruption in government are the same people who go into the polls and vote for a name because they’ve heard of it.”
Still, Connor is an optimist and isn’t giving up on local politics.
“There’s a sense of integrity and a sense of accomplishment in having run a hard, good substantive campaign,” he says.
Eventually, he says, “the good guys do finish first.”
But not this time.
Assessor candidate Raymond Figueroa came in third, behind Robert Shaw and winner Joseph Berrios. Berrios, the Cook County Democratic Committee chairman, got Gov. Quinn’s endorsement.
Sheila Chalmers-Currin, the Matteson trustee running against Commissioner Deborah Sims, lost soundly.
Xavier Nogueras, the former Harold Washington foot soldier and favorite of Alderman Roberto Maldonado, lost by several thousand votes to Commissioner Edwin Reyes. Reyes took over Maldonado’s seat when he went to the City Council.
Attorney John Fairman came in third in the 6th District race for Commissioner Joan Patricia Murphy’s seat.
Architect Ade Onayemi was bested by 1st District Commissioner Earlean Collins.
And, last but not least, Dr. Victor Forys, running for Liz Gorman’s 17th District seat, was bested in the Democratic primary by Orland Park’s Patrick Maher. Forys, who had Preckwinkle’s backing, lost to U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley in the special election for Rahm Emanuel’s vacated Congressional spot.