McHenry County Blog

Filing as third party candidates for governor against power party candidates Rod Blagojevich and Judy Topinka were the following gubernatorial candidates:

· Randall Stufflebeam of the Constitution Party
· Rich Whitney of the Green Party and
· James (Shinn) Blaine of the Independence Party

Stufflebeam won the game of “chicken,” filing last, and will be last on the ballot, if he withstands an expected ballot challenge from supporters of Judy Topinka. Stufflebeam is a social conservative who would not have participated in the Gay Pride Parade yesterday, as Topinka did.

Stufflebean told McHenry County Blog:

"We ended up filing 4,382."

The answer to the question about whom he expected to challenge his petitions:

"The Republicans."

Stufflebeam said that the Democrats were there ready to contest (Green Party Whitney's petitions), but

"Apparently, the Republicans ran out of time because it was five o’clock."

The Green Party seems most confident in its having gathered the 25,000 necessary signatures, which, I hasten to add is 5 times the number required by the power party candidates.

The Independence Party candidate did not file a full slate of candidates, so will be disqualified, if anyone cares to challenge its petitions’ sufficiency.