9 pm: Gorman projected winner in 17th District as count continues with heavy lead

Gorman projected winner in 17th District as count continues with heavy lead

9 pm: The vote count is not yet completed, but with 213 of 278 precinct reporting, Cook County Commissioner Elizabeth "Liz'Doody Gorman (R-17th) is leading by a strong margin. Gorman has 42,444 votes to Maher's 26,174 votes. That's about 70,000 votes cast in 213 precincts. With 65 precincts remaining, that means if the vote totals hold consistent, that there are about 23,000 more votes left. To catch up, Maher would need 16,000 votes, leaving about 7,000 votes to decide the race. 

In other words, Maher would have to take almost 20,000 of the remaining 23,000 votes in the remaining 65 precincts to win, a statistical impossibility.

He could close the gap, but it is a wide gap. The Orland Parker Blog is projected Liz Gorman the winner.

That makes Gorman the kingmaker in Orland Park and she shut down, singlehandedly, the Orland Park Democrats who went full court press with money (from unions and the Hynes clan -- Maher is a cousin of Dan Hynes) to defeat Gorman.

But Maher's undoing was listening to whomever is the moron who advised him to try to hide or disguise his past. His past conviction and his efforts to hide it, including using a false birth date so that reporters and rivals might not discover the conviction, was his undoing.

You can't hide the truth.

And Maher's strategy to link Gorman to failed Cook County Board President Todd Stroger was a preposterous and stupid strategy.

Gorman singlehandedly stood up to Stroger's repeated tax hikes and when the other commissioners were prepared to give up, Gorman rallied them to a second and third try until half of the one percent sales tax was repealed.

Maher's poor leadership of the Orland Fire Protection District also was an albatross he could not disguise either with false claims that he cut taxes. The Orland Fire Protection District is one of the highest taxed fire districts in the state and one of the two highest in the nation. $25 million to run one fire protection district. It's outrageous.

Other projected winners: State Rep. Kevin McCarthy over Tea Party Republican Jeff Junkas. And, the balance is out there as Jeff Tobolski, the mayor of McCook, continues to lead with a healthy margin in the race to unseat mercurial and loud-mouthed county commissioner Tony Peraica. The Peraica-Tobolski battle will be close but Tobolski got a boost when Peraica was arrested when he was caught destroying election signs on Saturday night. Peraica was arrested, jailed for four hours and had his mug shot taken, forever burning the image of his mug shot.

What was Peraica doing in Stickney and then McCook at 11 pm at night wearing a black shirt (according to his mug shot image released by McCook Police) and driving around in a van?

Voters are not stupid, Peraica. At least most of them are not.

To review the final tallies:

CLICK FOR ELECTION RESULTS FOR COOK COUNTY 

CLICK FOR ELECTION RESULTS FOR CHICAGO 

-- Ray Hanania

www.RadioChicagoland.com