McHenry County Blog

The answer is pretty simple, actually.

Somewhere is some Republican campaign material I read advice from Abraham Lincoln on how to win an election. It is deceptively easy:

1 - Identify your supporters.
2 – Get them to the polls.

If you think that is simple, try it some election.

That’s a paraphrase, of course. Here’s the real thing:

"Make a list of every Whig and make sure they vote."

Certainly, the Carpentersville District 300 tax hike committee committed the enough of its $200,000 in resources to run a voter identification and get out the vote campaign. My guess is that, with $62,500, the Woodstock District 200 tax hike group did, too.

I saw part of the District 300 tax hike operation in action two Saturdays before the election in western Carpentersville, south of Huntley Road. A man and a woman were walking in a neighborhood that already had “Yes” sign penetration of over 40%. Clearly, it had already been worked once. This couple was there for a second (maybe, even a third) try to find the people who had been missed before.

(When I was a Republican precinct committeeman, I tried to knock on everyone’s door at each election—that was 5 times every 2 years. I found that over a 4-year period, I would get a chance to meet someone at pretty much every home. The point is that one must go back again and again to reach everyone.)

What the District 300 tax hike committee did to win was to outspend and outwork the opponents.

The opponents had no real ground campaign beyond signs, which the proponents repeatedly removed. (More on that subject—with pictures of a red truck—in a later story.)

The tax hikers, on the other hand, expended many resources on identifying who would vote “Yes.” On election day, I’ll give large odds that they were calling those who had not yet voted to exhort them to go to the polls well past 6 PM.

The opponents campaign was pretty much over before election day.

The proponents realized that the battle was not over until the polls closed.

Let’s use a more of war analogy.

Both the proponents and the opponents carpet-bombed the mail boxes.

The opponents ran special operations (meetings) resulting in publicizing their side of the issue.

The opponents had an intelligence operation going for them that drove the tax hikers nuts. Led by Larry Snow’s February 8th Algonquin-LITH's Rotary Club alternative interpretation of District 300’s financial projections that intelligence resulted in the heavy damage of two traditional allies' (daily newspapers) refusing to participate in one front of the war (endorse the tax hike referendum).

The proponents had big guns, too. These Big Berthas heaved huge sums of money into the treasury of the tax hikers. They (at least those operated by developers) also managed to somehow convey to every newspaper how important it was to approve the bond issue…if (circulation) growth and homebuilder advertising were to continue.

However, only the proponents had ground troops that went door-to-door and made phone calls.

You can no more drive the enemy out of Baghdad without ground troops than you can even the odds in a tax hike referendum without following Lincoln’s campaign advice.

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Although I predicted a higher turnout in my pre-election article estimating the cost per vote in Districct 300, Dundee Township Republican Precinct Committeeman Marc Avelar rightly notes that I didn't include that factor in this analysis. He's posted it in comments, but it deserves to be seen in the main article:

Something missing from your analysis is the impressive voter turnout which took place within most of D300's precincts. In my own precinct, Dundee Precinct #29, 55.5% was the overall turnout. That's 422 out of 761 registered voters turned out to vote on Tuesday. Of those 422 voters, 277 took Republican ballots, 86 took Democrat, and 59 cast non-partisan ballots.

That's the highest voter turnout in a non-General Election for my home precinct (and I've lived here over 11 years).

Marc V. Avelar
Algonquin, IL

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At the 2002 primary election, District 300 voters approved a $35 million Working Cash Fund was approved 8-7, a 56% “Yes” vote. 15,886 people voted.

In the 2000 presidential election, another referendum was held by District 200. 30,531 voted on the referendum to borrow $88 million to build Westfield School and increase the tax rate maximum from $2.40 to $2.70 per $100 of A.V. The proposal passed 18,304 to 12,227—almost a 60% voting for approval.

I based by cost per vote predictions on a 20,000 voter turn out. My turnout projections were about 10% too low.