Hiding behind lack of campaign promises

The election is over and we have a new congressman, Bob Dold; a new member of the state House, Sheri Jesiel; and a new governor, Bruce Rauner. We received 51 pieces of campaign mail for those three races. In postelection cleanup mode, I toyed with tossing them. But I decided, instead, to look through them, ferret out the campaign promises, then keep track of how the three keep their promises.

To my horror, I found not a single campaign promise.

In fact, of the 51 pieces, only one actually came from a candidate committee - from Brad Schneider, who lost in the 10th Congressional District. That lone brochure carried not a single campaign promise.

The remaining 50 pieces came from the Illinois Republican Party, the Democratic Party of Illinois, the House Majority PAC, Personal PAC and one odd piece from the women in the life of the losing candidate for state House.

Most of the mailings bashed the opponent, touted endorsements, stated shallow and meaningless platitudes about the candidate of choice and/or carried horrible photos of the opponents.

Now I'm feeling ticked off. If there are no campaign promises, candidates can't break promises. How can I hold them accountable when they're not telling me anything about how they will govern?

But what a great gig for the candidates! Promise nothing. Demonize the opponent. And be able to say "I never broke a campaign promise."

This may be the brave, new world of politics, but I think it stinks.

Diana Vickery

Gurnee