Both GOP Cook president candidates want to cut sales tax

As Republicans running for president of the Cook County Board - a position that hasn't been held by the GOP for more than 40 years - Roger Keats and John Garrido are fellow underdogs with more similarities than differences.

Both would roll back all of the 1 percent increase in the sales tax imposed in 2008 and already set to be cut in half in July, and both would assign the county's inspector general's office to root out corruption.

Yet, how they would go about business should they get elected would be vastly different.

Keats, a 16-year legislator in the Illinois General Assembly from Wilmette, touts his experience fighting against corruption as a bipartisan politician, such as working with Chicago Mayor Harold Washington in the 1980s to reform the Regional Transportation Authority Board. Keats, who has been out of politics since losing a state Senate race in 1992, is the slated candidate of Cook County Republicans.

Garrido, a 19-year veteran of the Chicago Police Department who also has a Northwest Side law practice, has never before run for public office. He says as a political outsider he has the brashness and new ideas to make a difference and have an immediate impact on local government.

Both agree the GOP nominee will be an underdog in trying to end a 44-year losing streak in the race, but both insist that time has never been better for a Republican to run against a Democratic "machine" in apparent disarray at the county level.