Opinion: Gorman slams Pekau’s “fake Republicans” in video ads
Orland Township Republican Chairperson Liz Gorman released a powerful series of videos slamming Orland Mayor Keith Pekau for backing a slate of “fake” Republicans. Pekau has isolated every elected official to the disadvantage of the needs of Orland taxpayers, but hopes to pull the wool over the eyes of the Republican Party for his new extremist Machine
By Ray Hanania
Orland Township Republican Committeeperson Liz Gorman this week released a series of three powerful videos slamming Orland Park Mayor Keith Pekau for claiming to be a “Republican.”
Pekau isn’t a Republican. He’s an egotistical, self-centered extremist who is slating candidates for Orland Park, Orland Township, school districts and other races in order to build a new far right Political Machine that he will control like a tyrant, the way he controls the Orland Park Village Board.
Pekau’s slate is better recognized as the “Pekau-Blagojevich slate,” named after disgraced former Illinois Governor and convicted felon Rod Blagojevich who tried to sell an Illinois U.S. Senate seat for profit. Pekau reached out to Blagojevich to get his endorsement for the controversy-plagued candidates on his Pekau Machine slate in Orland Township.
It’s all intended to distract voters from what he did. Pekau’s literature misleads voters by claiming that he “reduced” the mayoral salary from $150,000 a year to only $40,000 a year. But in fact, Pekau has continued to take the $150,000 a year salary working as a part-time mayor.
Pekau is like a Political Machine Boss wannabe — “the $600,000 Man,” a meme of the popular 1980s TV series the $6 Million Man. The $600,000 is how much Pekau has taken from taxpayers during the past four years as a part-time mayor.
Cook County Republican Party Chairman Sean Morrison, a decent person who has errantly followed in the Pekau-style of governance by stumbling in fear of being booted out of office as Cook County Commissioner. Rather than back the moderate Republicans who are his base — the Reagan Democrats — Morrison has put all his eggs in Pekau’s basket. It’s a big mistake that could haunt him. After all, he barely won re-election, leading his unknown first-time radical challenger, Abdelnasser Rashid, by a measly 1,377 votes. Rashid is one of the American Arab community’s bright leaders and a rising star in community politics.
Any moderate or strong Democrat could have wiped Morrison’s career. But Morrison had the backing of Liz Gorman, at the time, and the backing of this columnist to help he remain relevant. Ironically, rather than stand with his friends, Morrison chose to support Pekau who has viciously attacked both Gorman, me and many other moderate centrist figures in the region.
Morrison used the County GOP Organization to try to hijack the Orland Township Republican Organization endorsement for Pekau in a desperate move to boost his re-election bid.
It was poor judgment. Morrison is supposed to represent the interests of ALL Republican Townships at the County GOP helm, but instead is trying to help Pekau by giving him the County GOP weight to make the beleaguered Pekau look better to Republicans. And, he is not the Committeeman of Orland Township. He’s the committeeman of neighboring Palos Township which has been in turmoil the past four years.
Pekau needs that support because his four years in office have been plagued by one controversy and costly mistake after another.
Pekau’s politics represents only the furthest rightwing fanaticism out there. His extremism has prevented him from building coalitions or achieving consensus to benefit Orland Park Taxpayers. Pekau has attacked nearly every elected official in Illinois making it impossible for him to achieve anything and that hurts all taxpayers regardless of your political party. Unable to work with others, Pekau the Machine Tyrant can only work with minions and sycophants who worship his personality-driven cult.
This week, Gorman set the record straight exposing the false Sample Ballots supporting Pekau’s Machine candidates. Gorman released a powerful video series entitled “VOTER ALERT! FAKE SAMPLE BALLOT HAS BEEN SENT TO VOTERS!”
In the first video, Gorman slams the poor judgment behind the so-called Cook County GOP Support of Pekau’s Machine Slate..
Click this link to view the video.
In the second video, Gorman slams Pekau’s association with disgraced former Governor Rod Blagojevich (a ousted Democrat) and several Township candidates who have been slated by Pekau whose personal controversies range from lying about being a lawyer to having an outstanding arrest warrant issued for a DUI-Drug, vehicle accident and revoked drivers license.
Click this link to view the 2nd video.
In the third video, Gorman declares that she does not support Keith Pekau accusing him of lying and betraying the trust of Republican voters.
“Mayor Keith Pekau wasted over $3.2 million of your money on frivolous lawsuits for his personal political interests. A false sample ballot was mailed by outside interests claiming Pekau was endorsed by the Republican organization. He is not,” Gorman said.
Click this link to view the 3rd video.
I asked Liz Gorman about the Cook County GOP’s endorsement slating and if Morrison ever asked her or conferred with her about his slating announcement.
“No. No one contacted me. It was never discussed or voted on,” Gorman said noting that Orland Township didn’t have a voice on the slating decision.
Gorman said only five Republican candidates approached the Orland Township Republican organization seeking endorsements. None of Pekau’s candidates did. They went straight to Morrison over the heads of Orland Park Republican voters.
Gorman recalled that she was mentored by the late Maureen Murphy and Judy Barr Topinka who both told here, “Just because someone claims to be a Republican doesn’t mean they deserve our support. If they aren’t good people we should not be supporting them. “
Did Pekau ever ask for the endorsement of the Orland Township Republicans? Gorman said he never did.
“If he had, I would have asked him why did he lie about the issue of reducing the salary when it fact he is still taking the full salary every year,” Gorman said.
The videos pretty much lay out why most moderate and centrist Republicans who hope to hold down taxes, increase services and especially improve safety in crime-besieged Orland Park need to reject Pekau’s tyrannical, hate-driven Political Machine and slate of controversy-plagued candidates.
Orland Park and Orland Township and our schools need a moderate, centrist leadership that can build coalitions and consensus to get the thing done that Pekau has failed to do.
Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.
Email Ray Hanania at rghanania@gmail.com.
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