​Tammy Wendt defeats Dan Patlak and the radical Left

Tammy Wendt defeats Dan Patlak and the radical Left

By Ray Hanania

In an era when individual rights are defined by the color of your skin rather than as a human right for everyone, Tammy Wendt stands out as a champion for all.

After a long, drawn-out election process confused by news media manipulation, political arrogance and vicious attacks by radical Left extremists, Tammy Wendt easily unseated longtime incumbent Dan Patlak in the battle for the First District Board of Review.

Patlak, a Republican, has held the post since December 2010. The same voting confusion that continues to plague the national elections for president had clouded the local elections too. News media that lambasted President Donald Trump for declaring victory early, hypocritically had no problem cheering on Patlak’s seeming “victory.”

But that was on November 3, when the election count consisted mostly of polling-place votes and mail-in ballots still had to be counted, a process that has plagued elections across America including in the national battle between President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden.

By Nov. 16, it was clear Patlak had in fact lost as a post-election surge of mail-in ballots showed Wendt with a powerful lead. Wendt not only closed the 19,000 voter lead that Patlak had claimed on election night, but vote tallies continued to grow giving her a solid lead of more than 10,000 votes, easily winning.

Patlak wasn’t the only one to crow early.

Wendt won the Democratic nomination for the office in the March 17 Democratic primary defeating Abdelnasser Rashid, a former aide to Cook County Clerk David Orr and who is associated with the “Our Revolution” activists.

It was Rashid’s second big defeat as a candidate, reflecting his inexperience in addressing issues and his narrow-focused concerns that failed to appeal to the majority of mainstream American voters.

Rashid’s allies, angered by his second major failed election run, were behind a vicious campaign of namecalling and personal attacks against Wendt. While Patlak was declaring victory so were Rashid’s supporters who celebrated in what they hoped was a defeat for a strong Democratic woman candidate.

Facebook and other social media were replete with false claims about the “power of the Arab American vote.” One wrote, “We defeated Tammy Wendt. It shows that when we come together, Arab Americans can make a difference.”

Of course, they came together for Rashid and were blown out of the election waters. Although they started out as “Democrats,” they quickly flipped to the Republican Party out of pure spite to support Patlak branding these Arab American radicals as untrustworthy and unprofessional activists whom the Democratic Party can’t trust for longterm support. And now they came together for a Republican incumbent and they lost bigtime, a reflection of their lack of credibility.

The radical Left has its own agenda. Fortunately, that agenda is weakened by their anger and their hatred which fuels their dysfunctionalism. There is much to be said about loyalty, but even more to say about the disloyalty of groups like that.

The Wendt-Patlak contest attracted more than 805,989 votes in the suburbs of the First Board of Review District, and 31,579 votes in the smaller Chicago portion of the district.

In Chicago, Patlak led with 17,723 votes and Wendt had 13,856 votes, giving Patlak a slim lead of 3,867 votes. But in the suburbs, as mail-in ballots began to be counted, the vote surged for Wendt.

Wendt received 375,819 votes to Patlak who received only 361,829, a difference for Wendt in the suburbs of 13,990 votes.

In the end, Wendt defeated Patlak by 10,123 votes, a significant margin that makes a recount unrealistic.

The biggest problem voters have had in this election isn’t really the mail-in ballots, but rather the presumption that elections are “declared” not by election officials anymore but by the biased news media.

The Arlington Heights Daily Newspaper, for example which endorsed Patlak for re-election, rushed to judgment because it was in their self-interest as a newspaper to do so. It really showed a lack of experience on the part of the editors and writers there. It’s very embarrassing for a newspaper like when Harry S. Truman held up a copy of the Chicago Daily Tribune on Nov. 3, 1948 which declared that New York Governor Thomas Dewey had defeated him for president.

Patlak himself is a mild-mannered and good person, maybe made too comfortable by having won three terms, although I am surprised he hasn’t picked up the phone yet to congratulate Wendt.

In the future, it would help if election boards would publish the total number of mail-in ballots that were requested and that are outstanding in an election contest so that when the election-day totals do come in, observers can decide if there are enough mail-in ballots still outstanding to make a difference.

The public should have known on election night that there were more than 45,000 more ballots outstanding when the media prematurely declared Patlak the winner.

Meanwhile, Wendt continues to maintain a professionalism that has been lost in local elections. She’s a champion who knows how to stand up for what is right against the loud-mouthed mob that insists on embracing wrong.

She showed how tough she was when she refused to back down in her legal defense of Jason Van Dyke, the Chicago Police Officer convicted in a race-driven controversy in the shooting of Laquan McDonald, who refused to listen to police while wielding a weapon and was shot and killed. McDonald's tragic history was replete with drug use and police troubles. Wendt was Van Dyke’s capable lawyer.

Wendt came to symbolize for many the moderate voices who feared the movement to “defund the police,” or that defended protestors and looters asserting they had the right to destroy property because of their historical claims of racism and discrimination. In Cook County’s suburbs, those fears of the radical Left are pronounced and unfettered crime drive voter choices.

I asked Wendt about the election and she was very humble.

“I thought I lost on election night and the days following,” Wendt told me.

“I truly grieved the loss and actually wrote a concession speech while awaiting my fate. I prayed about it and had a real heart to heart with God. I accepted the loss. It was a dark few days and I went through all of the emotions of losing.”

Wendt never gave up though.

“We knew there was going to be a large amount of mail-ins and provisional ballots so we maintained positive thoughts,” she said.

“When my team saw the numbers and made some quick calculations, they were really confident that we would pull it off. This has shown me unquestionably that it takes more than money to win an election. My team has heart and soul and that proved to be the difference maker.”

Patlak, like Trump, has refused to acknowledge the inevitiable.

“The race is close but has not been certified yet,” Wendt acknowledged.

“But I feel pretty good right now being up over 10,000 votes and I’m so grateful to the taxpayers of Cook County for believing in me. I am here for them. I’m looking forward to diving in and going to work for the betterment of Cook County.”

I think Wendt is going to do a great job.

(Ray Hanania is an award winning former Chicago City Hall reporter. His columns on mainstream politics appear in the Patch, the Southwest News Newspaper Group, and his Middle East columns appear in the Arab News Newspaper. Check out his radio show and podcasts at www.Hanania.com.)