Kane chairman candidate denies GOP mole accusations
Though it sounds like a plot from a spy novel, Dundee Township Democrats believe local Republicans are planting fake candidates in some local races in hopes of bankrupting Democratic campaigns before the general election. In that plot, Sue Klinkhamer is the chief mole.
Klinkhamer is running against Bill Sarto to win the Democratic nomination for Kane County Board chairman. Dundee Township Democrats announced their endorsement of Sarto this week. For Klinkhamer, the accusation that’s she’s not a true Democrat isn’t new. She heard the same charges when former Congressman Bill Foster hired her.
“I am not now, nor have I ever been, a plant,” Klinkhamer said. “When I went to work for Bill, they thought I wasn’t Democratic enough. Sadly, these are the people who actually end up controlling the process in the primary. All they want is to be kissed up to, and I’m too old for that crap. Are they really all so great that I’ve got to come and bow before them? I’ve done a whole lot more in government than most of those people have even thought about.”
Dundee Township Democratic Party Chairman David Reece said Klinkhamer should’ve either come to the party before announcing her candidacy or run as an Independent.
“I’d have some respect for her if she ran as an Independent,” Reece said. “If you’re going to run for office as a Democrat, we want you out there actually making an effort. But her ideas are really kind of ridiculous. She wants to hire an administrator to run the county. What, is she not up to the job? That’s only going to cost more money. And she wants to cut more seats off the county board. That’s just taking away representation.”
But aside from her plans, Reece said the party has a major problem with Klinkhamer’s voting record. Records from the Kane County Clerk’s office show Klinkhamer voted Republican in every primary race from 1996 until 2008. She voted as a Democrat in the special primary to fill Dennis Hastert’s vacated 14th Congressional district seat in 2008. She also voted as a Democrat in 2010 as a member of Foster’s staff. But Klinkhamer isn’t the only local candidate to ever switch party allegiance.
Judge John Noverini was a Republican before he ran as a Democrat during the blue wave that swept Illinois during Barack Obama’s presidential run. Kane County Board member Deb Allan was once a Republican before her last re-election. And Kane County Board member Monica Silva was a Republican in Aurora Township before winning a seat on the county board as an Independent. She’s now running for re-election as a Democrat.
The difference, again, Reece said, is those candidates vetted themselves through the party before taking on the Democratic label.
“Sue Klinkhamer totally avoided us,” Reece said. “She only decided to run when Sarto announced. We’ve known Republicans have been doing this for years. What they are trying to do is to disrupt the process and make Democrats spend money in primaries where they normally wouldn’t have to. For awhile we didn’t have any push back on that strategy, but we’ve finally decided enough is enough.”
Kane County Republican Party Chairman Mike Kenyon said Sue Klinkhamer is not a GOP mole, nor is planting fake candidates a typical strategy for the party.
“I don’t know Sue Klinkhamer,” Kenyon said. “I do know people that know her, and they consider her a reasonable person. But I’m not part of any plan to put fake candidates in the race. In fact, I was kind of surprised when Sue ran. I thought maybe she’d had enough of it. Whenever someone says rumors like this about me running someone against somebody I tell them to ask themselves if that person is somebody that Mike Kenyon talks to. I don’t know Sue.”
Klinkhamer said it’s true she voted Republican for a long time. But in her mind she wasn’t voting for Republicans; she was voting for friends like former Kane County State’s Attorney John Barsanti and Kane County Clerk Jack Cunningham.
“For a long time there weren’t any Democrats on the local ballot,” Klinkhamer said. “So why should I not support my friends that run for office when you have nobody that’s a Democrat to vote for? When I have to work with the Democratic Party, I have no problem doing it. I know saying these things won’t get Democrats to vote for me. I did think about running as an Independent. The problem is it’s much harder to do that. You have to get something like 2,000 signatures just to get on the ballot. If that wasn’t so hard to do, I’d do it.”