Cook prez opponents gang up on Preckwinkle

Faced with the daunting prospect of running against the Democratic nominee in the race for Cook County Board president, the Republican and Green Party candidates took the highly unusual step Thursday of issuing a joint statement against Chicago Hyde Park Alderman Toni Preckwinkle.

Republican Roger Keats of Wilmette and Chicagoan Tom Tresser of the Green Party decided to "join together to issue a statement of what we believe are the standards a Cook County Board presidential candidate should be held to."

Many of the positions they cited have been advocated by Preckwinkle since the primary campaign, such as the pledge to cut the county's budget and workforce and "do everything in our power" to remove the remainder of the 1-percentage-point increase in the sales tax pushed through by President Todd Stroger in 2008 and cut in half this summer.

Yet, in issuing the statement, Keats and Tresser hoped to link Preckwinkle, a progressive Chicago alderman who won the Democratic primary without the official party endorsement, with the entrenched Democratic power base in the county and attack the "waffling of the insider candidate."

Keats and Tresser also teamed up against Preckwinkle at a recent debate at the Union League Club in Chicago, but this was the first time their campaigns combined to issue a joint release.

Preckwinkle did not reply to requests for comment.

Republican Richard Ogilvie was the last non-Democrat elected Cook County president, in 1966.