Klinkhamer fields campaign questions in Kane County ‘Pit’
As Sue Klinkhamer stepped into an open square created by a ring of tables Friday night in the backroom of a Panera Bread in Batavia, it marked an odd place to be the first test of her experiment running a self-described “anti-campaign.”
Klinkhamer hopes to be the Democratic nominee for Kane County Board chairman once all the ballots are counted in her primary battle with former Carpentersville Village President Bill Sarto come this March. But her plan, at least for the primary, is to run a campaign with no signs in front yards. There will be no mailboxes full of campaign literature. And her campaign coffer won’t feature any big-money contributions.
“To ask your friends for money in economic times like this, I just think that’s part of everything that’s wrong with politics these days,” Klinkhamer said.
Instead, her efforts will focus on events similar to what brought her into that open square Friday. As she walked into the square, the nearly 30 members of the Kane County Progressive Caucus there let her know they refer to the open square as “The Pit.”
It was the first question of the night that may prove to be the tipping point of which chairman candidate local Dems decide to back in March. Shortly after a meeting that involved planning participation in local Occupy Wall Street events, the question came.
“Just how progressive are you?”
In one way or another, Klinkhamer found herself indirectly answering that question for the next two hours. And through tidbits of her responses, the answer was clear. Klinkhamer is certainly a Democrat. She believes in universal health care. She’s a big fan of affordable housing. She wants Kane County to do a better job of providing social services to residents, particularly when it comes from the health department.
But Klinkhamer is not a progressive in the sense that she’ll be out at those Occupy Wall Street events the group was planning. She doesn’t have a full green-energy platform for Kane County. And she wants to cut government by shrinking the size of the county board even more than the two seats that were recently eliminated from the 26-seat taxing body.
Those stances, perhaps, should not be a surprise for voters familiar with Klinkhamer’s political career. She just finished a 2½-year stint as former Congressman Bill Foster’s district director. Foster positioned himself as a moderate Democrat. And Klinkhamer sees herself in much the same way.
“When I got hired by Bill, there were a lot of Democrats who didn’t think I was Democratic enough,” Klinkhamer told the group at one point. “Much of my background is nonpartisan. And I’m not going to say something to a group just because you want to hear it. If people want to vote for me, they can vote for me.”
With that, she stood on the rest of her campaign platform. She’s pro-union. She wants to hire an administrator to run the day-to-day duties of the county. And she’s a big fan of farmland preservation within reason.
Whether that’s enough to woo enough Democrats to her corner will be decided in March. Sarto will enter “The Pit” at a Kane County Progressive Caucus meeting in early February.