Tickets for the event are $250 each, but "young professionals" (i.e., lawyers in practice for fewer than five years) can purchase tickets for a discounted price of $100. Sponsorships are also available (Friend - $500, Supporter - $1,000, Host - $2,500, and Sponsor - $5,000). Among those planning the Judge Lyke's Kick-Off Reception are Joe Power, Larry Rogers, Sr., Louis Cairo, Larry Rogers, Jr., Judge David Erickson (Retired), and Justice Marcus Salone (Retired).
For more information, or to order tickets, call (312) 854-8018 or visit the event page on Judge Lyke's website.
Didn't know where to post this, so I am putting it on the most recent post.
ReplyDelete"Chutzpah" is a Yiddish term that loosely means "shameless audacity" and on this Rosh Hashanah I can think of no better term than to describe the arrogance and imprudence of the Cook County Democratic Party.
First, the slating contribution was $30,000, then by mid-summer they raised it to $35,000, and finally by slating the party upped the contribution to a whopping $40,000. The reason for this 34% from one year to the next? Well, there was none. No explanation was offered.
Then today, the most galling e-mail was sent out by the party telling candidates that in addition to their $40,000 ... they needed to get petitions signed with 1,500 signatures!! If you got just 700 more signatures on your own, you can get on the ballot and save yourself $40,000!!
What exactly does the $40,000 get you? The party does not supply a lawyer, does not get your signatures, and does not pay for any ballot challenge you file or defend. Then on top of it, you are still shaken down by half the committeemen who invite you to attend their birthday party ... for $250, or ask you to join them for a day at the horse races ... for another $500, or invite you to attend their picnic ... for another $250, and on and on it goes. Then there are the extra charges you get from your "campaign consultant," even though you don't know what the hell she did with the first $6,000 you gave her. Then come election time, if you are in a tight race, committeemen will expect candidates to pony up more money if they want to be on that ward's palm cards, and some committeemen will tacitly imply that if you don't cough up a substantial amount of money, they will in fact offer you zero support ... that's zero with a "Z." Oh, and don't forget that there are some notorious committeemen who will also shake down the your opponent and print several sets of palm cards, just enough to make it look legit when you stop by. And there they will sit, in a back room of some ward or township party office gathering dust and mildewing.
Shanah Tovah everyone! May you be inscribed for a good year. That will be $1,500.
I echo what has been said above. I just received an invitation to Louis Arroyo's "candidates forum" and the "entrance fee" is $750!! In return, you will get to step up to a microphone with 20 other candidates and over the din of the talking guests tell them your name, bar association ratings and mention some charity work you did 17 years ago. No one will hear you or remember you. Arroyo will not know your name when you come in, will not know it when you leave, and will not remember it tomorrow. On election day, you will get nothing for your $750. [Read that last sentence again.]
ReplyDeleteThe Cook County Democratic Party is also holding a fundraiser that you are expected to buy tickets to and attend within days of writing them a $40,000 check. Big wigs from the CFL will be there, so if you don't attend you do so at your own peril. More money down the drain. It is usually around this time of the campaign when candidates begin trying to convince their kids that Dartmouth is really no better than Moraine Valley Community College.
It is all a big gamble. If you win election, or lose election, at some point you will be in a mortgage foreclosure courtroom as either the judge or the defendant.
I do disagree that the Party does nothing for the $40,000. A week before election, they will send out a mailing with a life sized photograph of Toni Preckwinkle's face on the cover, and inside will be your $40,000 thumbnail photo and name. There will be a number of candidates running for office also listed in the mailer, and most of them will not have paid anything for the mail piece which you have happily subsidized.