Presidential elections always rouse the passion of a certain portion of the populace. This year, however, a polarized America has produced a new batch of political activists, determined to help tip the balance in November–swinging “red” states to “blue,” or vice-versa.
In late July, WomanNews talked to women advocating for liberal causes and campaigning for Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry and Illinois Senate candidate Barack Obama. This week, in conjunction with the Republican National Convention, we look at two citizens so committed to their conservative beliefs, they even ran for local office.
Grace Lin
Doing her part for the system
Most people remember whom they voted for in their first election. So does Grace Lin–and she won, too.
The 20-year-old University of Chicago student cast her first vote for herself in March and, with her victory, became the 20th Ward’s Republican Committeeman. Of course, in heavily partisan Chicago, most of the people in her ward drew a Democratic ballot; still, she beat back two other challengers in a race with no incumbent.
“I believe I’m the youngest person ever to win this spot, and probably the first Asian-American woman as well,” says Lin, who’s majoring in math and economics.
She’s also the president of the university’s College Republicans, which meant she had a de facto campaign staff once she secured a spot on the ballot. It was a recipe for success for both Lin and fellow CR member Christopher Coordes, 21. Bolstered by peer support in getting out the vote, the pair made a coordinated run at two GOP committeeman posts.
“That made it much easier, because we could help each other out,” Lin says.
When asked what motivated her to run for office while pursuing her bachelor’s degree, Lin replies, “I wanted to be able to help mobilize the South Side and to help clean up the politics in the ward,” where she contends people still vote more than once.
Among Lin’s duties over the next four years is appointing Republican election judges; she says she’ll soon be examining the primary voting records of current judges to see if they typically vote Republican. She also will be mobilizing support for President Bush and Senate candidate Alan Keyes, “getting volunteers out to go door to door and to run phone banks to get people to vote.”
Lin traces her interest in politics to grammar school in Massachusetts, where she grew up. “By 7th grade, I was convincing everyone in my class to vote for Steve Forbes” in a mock presidential election, she says. Her interest grew during high school, when she served as co-president of the Republican Club and president of the Debate Club.
Perhaps politics is in her blood.
“My parents’ issue is Taiwanese independence,” she says. “And I have an uncle who’s a mayor in Taiwan.”
Politically, her family covers the spectrum, she says–four years ago, between her parents and siblings, her household had boosters for Bush, Al Gore, John McCain and Ralph Nader.
“One of the bigger issues for me is the economy and how to deal with it,” Lin says. “Tax breaks, I think, are key for stimulating the economy.”
She also mentions her anti-abortion beliefs and opposition to raising the minimum wage.
“I’ve always been pretty interested in politics,” she adds. “I find there’s so much potential to really change people’s lives with politics. It’s always been really fascinating to me.”
–W. B.
Jill Stanek
Leading a fight against abortion
Though this mother and grandmother has long considered herself Republican, Jill Stanek, 48, didn’t become a political activist until five years ago.
That was when Stanek, a registered nurse, “stumbled on” a late-term abortion, a procedure that horrified her. “I worked at Christ Hospital [in Oak Lawn] and found out that they were aborting babies alive,” she says.
Stanek’s outrage led her to begin a public crusade against abortion that took the far south suburban Mokena resident to Washington the following year, where she testified about late-term abortions before Congress. Later, when federal legislators passed the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, “I was invited to the signing ceremony in 2002 by President Bush,” Stanek notes. A picture of herself and the president hangs on her office wall.
The abortion issue “keeps weaving itself into Illinois politics,” Stanek says, noting that Democratic state Sen. Barack Obama’s votes against a similar bill have become a campaign issue in the race for the U.S. Senate seat. Stanek strongly supports Obama’s opponent, Alan Keyes, and she recently engaged in an online debate with Tribune columnist Eric Zorn aboutabortion(bancodeprofissionais.com/new s/columnists/ericzorn/chi-stanek.story).
In 2002, she decided to run for state representative in the 81st District, in Will County. She lost that bid in the Republican primary against incumbent Renee Kosel–but the experience quickly led to another opportunity.
In the wake of those primaries , Stanek recalls, three of her friends launched IllinoisLeader.com, because they deemed “that conservative views weren’t getting out in the media, or they were getting out in a skewed fashion.” Though initially a volunteer, Stanek later took on a paid job as operations manager as the site grew; she also writes a weekly column. This election season, she’s temporarily taken over the duties of two of her bosses, who went on leave to work for the Keyes campaign.
“Working for the site has really helped me think through a lot of other issues that would definitely make me conservative,” Stanek says. For example, she cites her support “for traditional marriage, for property rights, for Second Amendment rights.
“I can’t think of a conservative issue that I might go a little more left on, except perhaps the environmental issue,” says Stanek, who’s also a Republican precinct committeeman at-large in Frankfort Township. “If you believe in God–which is my core belief behind my conservatism–and that he created the Earth, then we just need to not trash it,” she adds.
Stanek intends to focus on her IllinoisLeader work as the election heats up.
“That’s how we are educating the entire state of Illinois on Keyes and Bush–going around the mainstream press, which is very liberal,” she says. “We say on the Leader we’re a conservative news source. We’re the Fox [News] of Illinois.”
–W.B.
