Lake County’s Democratic candidates would like to remind the GOP forces pumping money into their opponents’ coffers of one detail: All of Lake County’s Democratic candidates live here, so they know and fundamentally understand its people and its issues.
U.S. Rep. Frank J. Mrvan, D-Highland; Secretary of State Candidate Destiny Wells; State Auditor candidate ZeNai Brooks; and State Treasurer Candidate Jessica McClellan joined U.S. Senate hopeful and Hammond Mayor McDermott on the final lap of their respective campaigns at Wicker Park Social Center in Highland for a rally Monday night to energize Democrats going into Election Day. McDermott, who sponsored the event, told the crowd that in all the time he’s spent campaigning, he’s never once seen Mrvan’s opponent, Jennifer-Ruth Green, for example.
“I’ve never seen her at anything; I’ve never shaken her hand,” McDermott said to the roar of the crowd of nearly 200. “She’s never done the work, and she thinks she can represent us? She wouldn’t know the difference between Whiting and Winfield.”
McDermott praised each of his guests for what they’ll bring to their spots should they be elected. Brooks, he said, works at a Fortune 500 company and is the First Lady of a Church who just happened to pick up a side job to be the State’s Auditor; while McClellan is an actual Treasurer. And Wells’s capacity for understanding the issues, such as telling him to watch for the Dobbs case as a precursor to Roe getting overturned, is second-to-none.
Wells’s opponent, Diego Morales, meanwhile, is “dangerous,” McDermott said.
“He’s been fired from his job twice, been accused of sexual assault and now voter fraud. He has no morals, no out-of-bounds,” he said.
And while some of the issues on which the GOP is campaigning are painful, they’re also temporary.
“Inflation — that’s temporary, but women losing their reproductive rights isn’t. And you know how we know that? Because S.B. 1 actually passed in Indiana,” McDermott said.
Mrvan pointed out that the entire nation is watching Northwest Indiana right now because the GOP thinks it can be flipped. As someone who’s seen what goes on in the Capitol, he said voters can no longer take for granted the things on which they’ve come to rely.
“When they told you they were coming for Roe v. Wade, they meant it. Now, they’re talking about privatizing Social Security, and if (the GOP) gets back in power, they are going to do it,” Mrvan said. “Who do you want? You want someone who you think will represent you. I don’t want to be on Fox News; I want to be in the union halls.
“There is a great deal at stake, here.”
McDermott said that whatever happens tomorrow won’t surprise him either way, but he’s had a lot of fun getting here.
“I know that I’ve left it all on the field, so it’s now up to the voters,” he said. “If I lose, I’ve spent the last four years meeting a lot of great people and seeing our beautiful state.”
David Fuentes, of Hammond, said he came out to show his support for Mrvan, who he’s known since Mrvan’s Trustee days.
“What he’s done, he’s gotten more for Northwest Indiana than I don’t know who. Frank’s a man of the people,” Fuentes said.
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
