A VIEW FROM THE CHEAP SEATS
By Rich Trzupek
Nice Goin' Streamwood
Streamwood, I�m proud of you. More importantly, you should be proud of yourself. You delivered a message at the ballot box, and you delivered it with authority.
You told the schemers and power-brokers that they are not welcome in our town. You sent Vic Santana, Rod McCulloch and Jim Dasakis, and the rest of their gang of hypocritical hacks, scurrying out of town, with their tails between their legs, and you did it in resounding fashion.
In politics, a candidate should be able to fall out of bed and get one third of the votes available. Santana wasn�t even able to reach that benchmark in Streamwood. With one exception, none of his candidates even got close to winning a precinct.
So much for the wizardry of Vic Santana. If he�s a political mastermind, I�m Mr. America.
Yet, one can feel badly for the candidates who put their faith in Vic, Jim and the boys. Bob Eisenmenger and Tyler Gordon don�t seem like bad guys (although I�d rate Bill Morris a bigger blowhard than even I - and I�m the last guy I would ever vote for). I can only imagine what Eisenmenger and Gordon thought as this campaign rolled on.
At some point, they had to wonder what in the hell was going on. It must of been like waking up the morning after, following a long night at the local pub, and discovering that you�re in a strange bed with a stranger partner. �Where am I and who in God�s name are you?�
Eisenmenger and Gordon are too young to be jaded. It all had to smell funny to them, even if they didn�t know exactly why.
From the beginning of the campaign, HDTV vaguely referred to Gordon as the manager of a �Streamwood� business. The name, or even nature, of that business, was never revealed. This stood in stark contrast to Gordon�s running mates, whose credentials proudly announced where they worked.
Gordon manages a bike and ski shop in Hanover Park (not Streamwood). What exactly is wrong with any of that? Is a bike and ski shop an illegitimate business? Why not trumpet his career, instead of�so obviously�being embarrassed by it? The answer lies somewhere in Vic Santana�s fervid imagination.
In fact, Gordon is an accomplished employee at an independent business run by one of the best, most genuine people I know�Rich Evers. That�s something to be proud of. That makes Gordon a valued part of our larger community. By trying so desperately, and so obviously, to hide it, Santana merely created questions, instead of providing answers.
And then there was the petition fiasco. The three candidates made very stupid�although very technical�mistakes on their nominating petitions. The candidates dutifully told a tale more full of holes than aged swiss cheese. It wasn�t just deceptive, it was downright embarrassing.
Finally, as the icing in the cake, HDTV put out a piece of campaign literature claiming that their slate of candidates was endorsed by Senator Micheal Noland. According to a note from Noland published on the Hanover Democrats and Independents website, the Senator never endorsed anyone in this race.
The only candidate who didn�t seem to care about all the shenanigans was Morris. Older and presumably more calloused than his running mates, Morris seemed to think it was �all part of the game.�
He approached the campaign like a petulant teen-ager, gleefully shouting comments from the audience during public meetings and pontificating on subjects he too obviously had no knowledge of. It was great theater, but hardly the stuff to inspire confidence in an elected representative.
As the campaign wore on, Santana and company desperately tried to find something to run against. And what was there to be against in Streamwood? Tax rates are low. The budget is in great shape. There is no lack of services. Most residents have been here long enough to realize how much, and how well, the village changed over 20 years. One can find disgruntled residents, but it takes some doing to locate them.
So they chose to run against Billie Roth. The assumption, I suppose, was that Roth�s failed bid for State Senate would translate into municipal defeat as well.
Oops.
Deciding to make the race about Roth, in her town, was a decision on par with Hitler choosing to invade Russia in the winter of 1941. There�s being uninformed, and there�s just being plain stupid.
This race was not a matter of Democrats vs. Republicans. Streamwood, for all it has done, isn�t going to define our role in Iraq. This race was simply a matter of defining how a village should be run: by people who appreciate all that has been accomplished and who have pledged to build upon that legacy, or by people who are tools of professional political hacks. You made the right choice Streamwood.
Personally, I hope that we haven�t seen the last of Tyler Gordon and Bob Eisenmenger. Though they didn�t win this election, there are elections to come and I think they may have something to offer our town.
More importantly, there is a community to serve. I hope that they volunteer to serve on a village commission. I hope that they join me, sweating on a street corner to raise money for the Kiwanis, volunteering to help out at Summer Celebration or honoring our veterans on Memorial Day at Village Hall.
These are the things that matter in a community. If these candidates, or any candidates, want to do something for their town, they should start there�even if they failed to win voter approval at the ballot box. For those are the causes that last�the ones that truly matter.
They will be with us a long time after the Vic Santanas and Jim Dasakis� of the world have moved on to more fertile, less-honorable, ground.
