This week caps a very troubling six month performance for Illinois Candidate for State Treasurer Mike Frerichs. He has - without question - had the worst campaign rollout in modern Illinois campaign history.
Let's hit recap on Frerichs thus far:
Six months ago, Democrat Sen. Mike Frerichs launched his campaign for Treasurer. Let’s take a moment to look at some of the highlights from his campaign so far.
- January, 2014: Misleading from the beginning: Frerichs launched his campaign with a video touting his record of reform by ending legislative perks and voting to cut his own pay. Within 24 hours, he was forced to remove the video because he actually voted against ending legislative perks and voted formultiple pay raises. (Source: Capitol Fax, Video)
- April, 2014: Flip-Flop on merging the offices of Comptroller & Treasurer: After voting to merge the offices in 2011, Frerichs told WBBM News in April that he was against the merger. This flip-flop invited his hometown newspaper, the Champaign News-Gazette to write this about Frerichs:
“But [Frerichs] clearly doesn’t know what he really thinks, and, when candidates don’t know what they believe, they say whatever seems convenient at the moment.” (Source: Champaign News-Gazette, WBBM)
- May 2014: Frerichs supports unbalanced budget: Fox News Political Editor Mike Flannery described the budget this way: “I can’t recall seeing as irresponsible budget as was just approved… You’d think that the whole General Assembly was on medical marijuana when they were passing this thing. It’s grotesquely out of balance… They emptied their whole dirty bag of tricks to make it look balanced.” (Official Illinois Senate Records, Fox News)
- June 2014: Democrat Paul Vallas criticizes Frerichs budget, while Frerichs looks on. “We’ve had decades of bad practices: borrowing, deferring, not funding your pensions, not paying your bills, not being willing to make the tough decisions on the revenue side,” Vallas told about 160 Democrats including Mike Frerichs at a dinner at the Laborer’s Union Hall in Urbana.
- June 2014: Frerichs ducks debate with Cross: Democrat Senator Mike Frerichs ducked out of the first scheduled debate between himself and Republican Tom Cross. Frerichs had agreed to participate in the debate, hosted by Bill Cameron of WLS, but then ducked out.
- July 2014: Frerichs endorsed by IEA, but IEA struggles to explain why. The IEA spokesman struggled for an excruciatingly uncomfortable 25 seconds to explain why the IEA endorsed Frerichs and then touted his strength at raising taxes. Listen by clicking here.
- July 2014: Frerichs supports plan to end investment in Israel, touts Illinois-centric investment strategy: Over the last five months, Frerichs has delivered stinging criticism directed at the office of the Treasurer’s investment portfolio, specifically Illinois’ investment in other states and overseas. Frerichs countered with his own plan of exclusively Illinois investments, although he has not outlined how that plan would work or how it would meet the statutes restricting investments by the office of the Treasurer. One country singled out under Frerichs’ plan: Israel. The office of Treasurer currently has a total of $25 million invested in foreign bonds, all with the country of Israel.
“That’s really stupid.” (WLS Lauren Cohn, July 22, 2014)
