First campaign sign of the season?

Sight seen at a Park Ridge barbershop yesterday afternoon: This campaign poster for John Michael Lagatutta, one of the 13 candidates for the one and only seat available from Cook County's 11th Judicial Subcircuit.

The barber asked me not to identify his shop too particularly; he only put up this sign, he told me, because the candidate is also a customer.

But soon whole groves of lawn and window signs will be in evidence and, thanks to the oh-so-early February 2 primary date, some of the signs may be festooned with lights or tinsel.

If you have a noteworthy or unusual photo of a campaign sign (or group of signs) for a Cook County judicial candidate you'd like to share, send it to me as a .jpg file. I reserve the right not to publish the sign, or to limit the number of sign photos published.

On a more substantive note, the floor is now open for submission of candidate statements "in their own words." The first of these went up this week; I'll keep putting up candidate statements as they come in. When I did this in 2007-2008, I got statements from roughly 25 candidates. I'm hoping to have many more personal statements this time around. I also linked to the candidate statements when I did 'round up' posts -- on a race by race basis -- so voters could comparison shop in the days immediately before the primary. If you're looking for exemplars, you can find the 2008 round-up posts and the personal essays in the Archives. To browse the Archives click on the year in the Sidebar; this will open up a month by month menu and you can search from there.

Also, I've run posts about several judicial candidate interviews on North Town News Magazine. If you know of other TV opportunities for, or appearances by Cook County judicial candidates, please leave a comment or send and email so I can promote these as well.

Finally, I'm looking for information from church or community groups about candidates' nights. I seem to have a knack for hearing about these after they've happened. I'm hoping to change this. If you're hosting an event for judicial candidates, even if you're limiting the event only to candidates from a particular subcircuit, please leave me a comment or send me an email. I'd like to help publicize your event.