GOP caucus flop should teach a strong lesson: Next time have an election

January 17th, 2009 at 04:04pm Chuck Sweeny

And so the Rockford Township Republican Caucus of 2008 is history. Let the record show that it was an unmitigated disaster. Out of 17,000 eligible Republicans, just 133 braved the cold weather Tuesday night to trudge on down to the Flinn Middle School auditorium to take part in the sorry production in which most of the speakers mumbled incomprehensibly into a microphone.

 (Side note: Improper mike use is one of my pet peeves. Microphones and sound amplifiers have been around for generations, yet most folks still have no idea how to speak into the mike properly. “Tap, tap, tap. Is this on?”)

People I talked to at the newly “Heartlandized” Flinn thought that having a caucus was a “dumb” idea in the largest township in the state because it disenfranchised so many people. The chief organizers of this event were a group of 16 Republican precinct committeemen who voted in November to replace the traditional primary with a caucus. The township’s last Republican caucus was in 1967 and it was held in a ballroom of the Faust Hotel, Dick Baer, former alderman and township supervisor, told me.

Ringleaders of the caucus coup were three, former Winnebago County Board members: John Harmon, the Republican candidate for mayor of Rockford, Chris K. Johnson and John M. Sweeney. Harmon and Johnson were defeated for re-election; Sweeney left the board to take a job with the county.

In a commentary he wrote in last Sunday’s Register Star, local GOP Vice-Chairman Jim Thompson defended the caucus, saying that “most of the people who have commented at the meetings held over the past months governing the caucus have expressed a new level of excitement.”

Well, 133 out of 17,000 does not excitement make. I hope that Republicans “remember the 133” the next time party zealots with entirely too much time on their hands propose a caucus to for Rockford Township. Let all the people vote because the GOP isn’t a private club, it’s one of our nation’s two, great political parties.

Having finished my diatribe, (and yes, I do feel better,) I must say that I was impressed with one speaker, and not just because he knew how to use the mike. Don Hall, a McCain delegate to the 2008 Republican convention, was a candidate for township trustee who asked to be removed from the slate and to be considered instead for slating as the party’s candidate for township supervisor against Democratic incumbent Mickey Goral.

Hall, a retired Air Force colonel, gave an impressive speech about the need for frugality and transparency in township government. He railed against the high salaries and 4 percent yearly raises township officials (except for Clerk Diane Mitchell) have given themselves. I’ll be talking more to Hall.

As for me, I’ve long favored abolition of the curious anachronism we call township government, and giving its few remaining functions over to cities and counties. The only place where township government makes any sense in the 21st century is at Midway Village.

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