Michele Piszczor believes she is a victim of the Madigoons -- the campaign army of House Speaker Michael Madigan. Her 2005 Honda Accord was dented. Its tires have been slashed four times.
What did Piszczor do to allegedly anger Mr. Speaker? She is running against him in the March 20 Democratic primary -- as an actual opponent, not a plant. We know Piszczor is not a plant because she gave an interview to the Chicago News Cooperative. Most of Madigan’s alleged opponents are more reclusive than Howard Hughes in his Melvin and Howard phase.
In 2010, the Illinois Republican Party held a fundraiser for, as they put it, Madigan’s “Republican” opponent, John Patrick Ryan. Ryan didn’t show up.
But Piczczor is for real.
“Madigan is the root of all evil here in our state,” she said. “He is the weed in our garden.”
Madigan’s spokesman, Steve Brown, suspects that Piszscor -- a 25-year-old legal assistant who was raised by a single mother and just bought her first house -- vandalized her own car to draw attention to her campaign, which is “not really registering a pulse.”
“Our experience over time is [that]…these things are usually self-inflicted,” he said. “Those cases have been pretty well documented.”
Really, just the fact that the woman drives a seven-year-old foreign economy car is proof that she can’t afford car repairs.
According to the article, Piszczor has two other opponents in the primary:
The primary ballot includes two other Democrats, Mike Rodriguez and Olivia Trejo, who live a few doors down from one another about two miles from Piszczor’s home.
Piszczor believes they are plants – candidates running with Madigan’s blessing to split the Hispanic vote and make it easier for him to win re-election. His district, according to the most recent U.S. Census data, is about 52 percent Hispanic.
Neither…seems to be waging a serious campaign. They have not filed paperwork with the State Board of Elections to raise money, and they don’t appear to have campaign offices or Websites. They did not respond to requests for comment on their candidacies.
Lesson: it’s OK to run against Michael Madigan, as long as you have his permission. And don’t try to win.
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