ADDISON - Republicans in Addison Township gathered this week to hear from candidates running for statewide to countywide offices, and, unlike DuPage County's other eight townships, Addison made endorsements for the March 18, 2014 primary.
Among those endorsed were Doug Truax for U.S. Senate, Kirk Dillard for Governor and Dennis Reboletti for State Senate. The full list of Addison Township GOP's endorsements is expected to be made public Tuesday afternoon. (UPDATE: The full list available HERE.)
Pat Durante, longtime chairman of the Republican organization that produced GOP leaders like former Senate President Pate Philip, one time House Speaker Lee Daniels and former Attorney General Jim Ryan, told Illinois Review Tuesday he was "very disappointed" that there are so many primary contests this time around.
"I'm very, very upset that so many Republican incumbents are being challenged. It's a sad day when Republican leaders can't get together and work out differences before Republicans have to spend so much time and money on so many candidates," Durante said. "We should be spending that money on beating the Democrats in November."
Durante said that Illinois Democrats have long had their sights set on dismantling Addison Township's Republican power. The 2012 redistricting map made it tougher to keep DuPage Republicans in office.
Where Addison Township once had one Republican Congressman they now have two, both Democrats. From one Republican State Senator, they now have three, two Democrats and one Republican. And from one Republican State Representative, there are now four, two Republicans and two Democrats. Most of the districts were carved up to insure Democrat majorities within each district.
"They couldn't win any other way, so they split up the township into four different state House districts, three Senate districts and two Congressional districts," Durante said. "We have twice as many races to cover now, making our organization work harder to keep Republicans in office. We need to focus on Democrats, not Republican primaries."
The Addison Township GOP considered candidates in nearly 20 different primary races, including U.S. Senate, Governor and Lieutenant Governor, State Treasurer as well as county and precinct races. The list of endorsements is HERE.
"Wouldn't have been nice to have just one Republican running for governor in 2014, like the Democrats have?" Durante said. "Like they say, Republicans are guilty of always eating their young."
