A birthday is supposed to be a happy day, right? But, when you're running for State Treasurer and you wake up to reading this complete dismantling of your campaign by Capitol Fax's Rich Miller in Crains, you can't help but take a shower-cry.
From Crains' Chicago Business:
Back in January, state Sen. Michael Frerichs formally kicked off his campaign for Illinois state treasurer and posted a video online touting the fact the he’d ended “free, lifetime health care for state legislators.”
Actually, Frerichs had voted against that bill in the General Assembly. Frerichs’ campaign had to pull the video and replace it with a new one, even though he’d been planning his formal launch for at least a year.
In April, Frerichs appeared to flip-flop on his long-standing position that the comptroller’s and treasurer’s offices should be merged.
“People have said to me,” Frerichs told a WBBM Radio interviewer, “‘Wouldn’t it just be a lot more efficient if we just had one financial officer?’ And I’ve said yes, we could become very efficient, efficient like the city of Dixon, Illinois, who just had one chief financial officer and she was able, from this small little town, over several years to take something like $52 million away from them.”
Frerichs was quickly forced to restate his support for the office merger.
Then...the Truth Team's video of IEA's 'endorsement' (we use that term lightly based on what they said at the event) made the piece. You can go read the whole thing yourself. If you're backing Mike Frerichs, it isn't pretty.
