I had dinner last night with Senators Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin...

[3catwoman3]

...House representatives Lauren Underwood and Sean Casten, and Governor JB Pritzker.

Along with at least 300 other McHenry County Democrats from the 6th and 14th Congressional districts. It was the annual fund raising dinner for the county Democratic Party. Sold out affair.

Lauren Underwood is a very dynamic speaker. If I lived about 2 blocks south of my current address, I would be in her district. Kinda wish I were. I am glad Casten gave the boot to Roskam, although I preferred and worked hard for one of the other Dems in the district primary. There were too many people in the primary, and they siphoned off votes from “my” candidate, who won all the precincts except the one where Casten lives, which was the biggest one.

Anyway, it was an uplifting evening.

[UTUSN]

1. Fan-TAS-tic!!!!!!!!!!!!! "uplifting" indeed!

[George II]

2. Lauren Underwood is an amazing legislator - she goes about the business....

....of being an effective Congresswoman without any fanfare. She's one of our fresh"men" shining lights. Highly impressive.

[Thekaspervote]

3. Wow! Lucky you

[lunatica]

4. Was it upbeat and positive?

Everyone daring to throw Trump’s ass out of the White House?

[murielm99]

5. Excellent!

Our dinner is June 6th. We have many of the same invited guests. I hope they are all able to make it.

[hedda_foil]

6. I'm in Casten's district in DuPage. It sounds like an amazing evening.

Which of the 5 female candidates in the face were you supporting?

[3catwoman3]

8. Kelly Mazeski.

When there are so many people in a primary, I always wonder how many of them really, truly, honestly-deep-down believe they are going to win. Do they not believe any of the polling numbers? "Hey, I'm only polling at 2%, but I can pull it off!"

Did you mean face or farce?

[hedda_foil]

9. Was when the one whose campaign sent big postcards a couple times a week?

I didn't mean farce or face. I meant race!

[3catwoman3]

10. I don't remember doing postcards. My involvement was...

...entering data in the VoteBuilder system, taken from the walk sheets of those who did the canvassing. My husband did phone caling and precinct walking. He is much more outgoing than I am. My idea of torture would be going door-to-door or making phone calls.

Here is a link to her profile:

https://ballotpedia.org/Kelly_Mazeski

And, I had my terminology wrong in my other post - Kelly won the precincts in 4 of the 5 counties that make up the 6th district. It is one of those very weirdly shaped districts.

The difference in the vote count between Casten and Mazeski was 1776 - interesting number.

[hedda_foil]

11. Thanks! Yes, she's the woman I was thinking of.

[smirkymonkey]

7. What a wonderful opportunity!

Can you tell us more?

[3catwoman3]

12. Sure. Senator Duckworth spoke first.

She is very energetic, and quite clear about how much she despises Trump. She spoke very kindly of Senator Durbin, and how much she appreciates all his guidance, and encouragement.

I quite honestly don't remember much of what Rep. Casten had to say, other than expressing his gratitude for all the effort to get him elected, and listing some legislation he co-sponsors.

Lauren Underwood is a ball of fire. I could have listened to her for far longer than the few minutes she was at the podium. Altho I am not in her district, I took a couple of minutes at the end of the evening to introduce myself, and wish her well from one nurse to another.

Senator Durbin was dignified and down to earth. He really pushed for local Dems to make sure we do not leave any Republican candidates running unopposed in our local elections.

Pritzker is a ball of energy and had a pretty long list of things his administration has already addressed in his first 10 days. He wants to legalize adult use recreational cannabis.

As far as I could tell, everyone spoke without notes.

We reconnected with a couple we first met in 2005, as a result of our younger son's travel soccer involvement. It is always a relief to discover someone I like is a fellow Democrat.

[smirkymonkey]

13. Thank you for sharing that with us!

Very interesting to hear and I appreciate the details.