Thursday, November 29, 2007

Is there any value in "face time" for a candidate?

This is Lamour Holloway.

Until Tuesday, at least, Holloway was employed by the Public Defender's office. It was on Tuesday that she allegedly took delivery of a 38 pound package of pot -- at the office. A police officer dressed as a UPS delivery person brought it in. Holloway buzzed two kids into the office -- the police wouldn't say if these were her own kids, although the story this morning in the Chicago Sun-Times noted that she apparently has two kids who about the ages of these kids -- and then left with the two kids and the package. When Holloway tried to hand the package to her husband, waiting outside in a car, the police moved in.

To this point, this is a standard-issue dumb criminal story. What caught my eye, though, was that 15th Subcircuit judicial candidate Anna Helen Demacopoulos was the spokesman for the prosecutor's office when this story was reported. I saw her on one of the TV newscasts last night (Channel 9, I think) and, this morning, I saw she was quoted extensively in the Sun Times story.

(From the Sun-Times story this morning: "'As a public employee, there's a sense of trust," Assistant Cook County State's Attorney Anna Demacopoulos said after court. 'And then to use children as a shield to disguise your criminal conduct in that public building is really disgusting.'")

Obviously, Ms. Demacopoulos' status as a judicial candidate was not mentioned, nor should it have been.

But the question is: Do stories like this -- favorable press mentions -- help a judicial candidate? Or do they come and go like soap bubbles, usually fading from the public consciousness without leaving any lasting impression?

Leave your theory in the comments if you like.
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Suspect photo obtained from the NBC5 website.

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