Lake County Dems Ramrod Terry Link Back Into Chairman’s Job as Pete Couvall Prepares to Get Thrown Under the Bus

Last night, both the Lake County Democrats and Republicans held their county conventions. On the surface, the results seem quite similar—GOP Chairman Daniel Venturi was re-elected without an opponent, and so was long-time Dem Chairman Terry Link. The behind-the-scenes look, however, shows marked differences in the parties’ political philosophies and integrity.

On the Dem side, the Waukegan News-Sun reported that Terry Link was voted back into the chairman’s job, stating that “The election was cast by a quick voice vote designed to overwhelm any nay votes.” The article does not mention whether there was a strong chorus of nays, or any at all. Given that Link faced opposition in the primary, and backed Lake County Board member Angelo Kyle against incumbent State Representative Eddie Washington (who won the contentious primary battle), you would think that a fair number of negative shouts would have been heard. Without anyone willing to stand up to Link as an opposition candidate, however, any scattered nays made as a protest vote would have been ineffectual anyway. The Daily Herald also had a story on the Dem convention.

Over at the GOP convention, current GOP Chairman Dan Venturi was also re-elected without opposition, although a call from the floor for a roll call vote necessitated doing an actual ballot. Unlike the Dem methodology of stifling dissent, however, no attempt was made to slam through a voice vote. Rather, the request for a roll call vote was honored and the balloting took place, even thought it ate up about a half hour in the middle of the convention. No “nay” votes were cast against Venturi, although a small percentage of the overall votes cast were “present” votes. These votes, we assume, were in the nature of protest votes by some that were unhappy with Venturi’s past term leadership or Venturi personally. However, as the disgruntled Dems (if there were any) also must have realized, unless someone else is willing to stand up and volunteer to do what is essentially a thankless job, in the belief that they can do it better, there is not much to be said for a token protest. The remainder of the GOP convention featured a recorded message from 10th Congressional District Congressman Mark Kirk, and rousing speeches from several other GOP candidates, including Steve Greenberg, Dan Duffy, and Tim Stratton.

The most interesting story to come out of last night’s conventions, however, is that Pete Couvall, Terry Link’s right-hand man, was not re-appointed to his position as Vice Chairman. As regular TA readers know, Couvall is right in the center of the Terry Link petition scandal. Couvall was the one who hired the two primary petition circulators, Jerry Knight and Kenneth Davison. Not only did the names of dead people appear on these petitions, an examination of the petitions themselves strongly implies that many names were copied right out of the phone book. Couvall notarized all of the petitions circulated by these two individuals. And, Davison testified that Couvall paid for the petitions to be circulated.

Lake County State’s Attorney Michael Waller is in the midst of an investigation into the allegations of petition fraud. There appears to be little doubt that both Davison and Knight will be indicted; the question then becomes if they will roll over and implicate Couvall as the mastermind behind the petition scam.

Based on last night’s actions, it appears to TA that the Dems expect that Couvall will be in the spotlight as the State’s Attorney’s investigation concludes. By removing Couvall from his vice-chairmanship now, the Dems appear to be attempting to distance themselves from Couvall in the event that he goes down, and try avoid the embarrassment of having to remove him at that point. It also allows Terry Link to further distance himself from the scandal and blame it all on Couvall. Couvall, being a devoted soldier, will no doubt take the fall.

There is no denying that Link has done a splendid job for the Lake County Dems in making substantial inroads in what was recently a solidly Republican county. Well, the Lake GOP has Link in its cross-hairs, and it’s payback time. While the Lake GOP prepares its announcement of the candidate that will be appointed to run against Link, it also knows its best bet to fend off any outside help coming to Link’s aid (did anyone mention Barack Obama, perhaps?), is to make him so radioactive that anyone with any brains will avoid Link like the plague. The petition scandal is a rare political break, which the Lake GOPers have vowed not to squander.

The Lake GOP is also helped by the continuity of Venturi continuing as chairman, as at least part of the Lake Dems’ success can probably be attributed to Link and his team having more than a decade to slowly build on their successes to get where they are today. We can only hope the Lake GOP as a whole has gotten the message that a unified party is the only way to beat back the Dems and be able to make some real changes in Springfield (hopefully before Blago and the Democratic General Assembly mortgages the state into bankruptcy).