Jogging down Nevada Street this week, I saw two Frerichs for Senate yard signs. One in the yard of the pacifist Buddhist, the other directly across the street in the yard of the longtime League of Women Voters organizer. I went to grade school with their kids. I’ve known them all my life. These are progressives. They are intellectuals. They favor gun control and a woman’s right to reproductive choices.
What do they like about Mike Frerichs? How does he get all these liberal Democrats to vote for him?
Frerichs campaign materials don’t use the word “Democrat,” not once. He refers to Democrats only when “fighting” them. He gets high ratings from the National Rifle Association. He’s anti-abortion (although not enough for the wingnuts: Frerichs recently lost his endorsements from pro-life groups).
Maybe I’ve spent too long being a sports reporter. Maybe I see things too simply. If Mike Frerichs consistently put the ball in the other team’s basket, I’d bench him.
Other fun things I’ve learned from Frerichs’ daily mailings is that he’s a lawyer who reads law books, he’s a workin’ man who works with workin’ men, and he uses Naomi Jakobsson’s constituents for his photo ops. To differentiate his followers from Naomi’s, and for the benefit of his Construction Worker constituency, he added a girl with a nice ass.
I may be a caveman lawyer, but I recognize case books when I see them. I also know that Mike Frerichs is not an attorney. I double-checked the ARDC website.
Is he in law school? Could that be the reason he’s pictured with a bunch of textbooks?
No, I checked the Illinois.edu directory.
In theory, he knows the difference between academic texts and statutes.
It would be nice if he familiarized himself with the US Constitution, which prohibits Bills of Attainder, like the one Frerichs sponsored, and trumpets in his campaign materials … against a Democrat.
Sure, Blago got a trial. And of course, he’s unlikely to win another election. But isn’t it up to the people to choose their representatives in government?
The local GOP chooses our candidates for us. Katie Blakeman, Gordy Hulten, and Rodney Davis were all chosen by party bosses, not by voters. So again, I ask you, in what respect is Mike Frerichs not a Republican?
It’s unlikely, in the year of a Democrat-designed redistricting, that the Illinois General Assembly would flip to the ‘pubs. But if it did, you could easily imagine Frerichs realigning. It worked for Richard Shelby, Ben Nighthorse Campbell, Arlen Spector. Unlike Jim Jeffords’ defection, none of those guys flipped on principle.
Frerichs’ wife is famously from a devout Republican family. His major constituency (organized labor) now veers toward the GOP, with labor leader John Farney running as the Republican candidate for County Auditor. AFSCME’s endorsement went to Hulten for County Clerk. Guns and hunting, old-tyme views about women and family, workin’ with your hands, god and church. The Vatican shift is on, and it’s trending red.
If you’ve read this far, but still haven’t gleaned this fact; Mike Frerichs is a Democrat.
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