The latest skinny, reported by the Daily Herald the NewsSun and the Pioneer Press, is that Lake County Chair Suzi Schmidt is running for Michael Bond's open Senate District 31 seat. According to the NewsSun Schmidt saidI've been mulling this over for a long time, probably for the last four months. I always have problems with the state (government), and I thought I'd just get my name out there.Your LakeCountyEye hazards to guess that Schmidt would have been still mulling four months hence, had not Bond announced his plans to run for the 10th Congressional District.
Not so, reports the Pioneer Press:
Schmidt said Bond's decision to run for Congress was not a factor in her decision to seek the state senate seat. "Whether he was running or not I was going to run. That didn't have any influence on my decision at all," she said.Readers are encouraged to make up their own joke regarding the LakeCountyEye's schmidt detector here.
Admittedly your LakeCountyEye is at a disadvantage when it comes to reporting any skinny on Suzi Schmidt, at least when it comes to handicapping her campaign prospects. Schmidt represents County Board District 3, and is not up for re-election until 2012. Which means Schmidt takes a minimal electoral risk running for anything in 2010. County Board 3 is fully contained in and at the western portion of Senate 31. It is a compact district of about 20,000 registered voters -- about 1/7 of Senate 31's total.
The Herald also reports that Schmidt has the backing of Lake County GOP Chair and Lake Villa Township Supervisor, Dan Venturi. This is surprising because your LakeCountyEye expected Venturi to run for Bond's seat. The rumor rumbling through northwest Lake County had been that JoAnn Osmond was planning to retire from her Representative District 61 seat before her term expired. Venturi would be appointed to sit out the remainder of her term. And Venturi would run for Senate 31 in 2010 -- using the Rep seat as way to ensure the pole position against his primary competitors.
But according to the Herald,
Venturi doubts Schmidt will have any serious opposition in the 2010 GOP primary.OK but let's not forget Senate 31 will be an open seat. And only 1000 signatures are needed to be on the GOP ballot. So whether or not deals have been struck to see that Schmidt rolls to an easy primary win, your LakeCountyEye predicts there will be a crowded field of primary candidates for Senate 31.
On both sides.
3 comments:
The other question one has to ask....Are the Blue Dog Guns of Springfield going to fight to keep this seat blue? It will be interesting to see the resources to will go into this fight and this is going to be a great fight!
The question is how do people think Ms. Schmidt has done as County President. She talks about bi-partisanship, though the Board still tends to leak partisanship which does a disservice to the entire county.
The better bet is that Suzi plans on running for this one 2-year term. That way she gets a third, publicly funded pension and she can retire.
Perhaps the Dems will turn the tables on her and pour all their resources into winning the 61st and 62nd House seats and the 4th and 7th County Board. That way they control the County Board, make the Illinois House Lake County Caucus much more powerful and they groom a candidate to run for the 31st in 2012. Even if Schmidt wins, she'll have zero influence, except to ensure that a tollway is built right thru Lake County to dump 40,000 cars a day onto route 120. On second thought, maybe they shouldn't let her win at all AND take those 4 other seats!
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