McAloon says Gordon votes with Chicago Democrats while trying to appear to people back home that she’s independent of Speaker Madigan’s strong grip.  According to the United Republican Fund’s year end voting record, Gordon voted with conservatives only 35 percent of the time. 

Gordon hasn’t had a strong challenge since 2004 when Morris Chief of Police Doug Hayse made the Democrats spend almost half a million dollars to elect the former prosecutor.  She won her first term by less than 1500 votes. 

“This is a 55/45 district, with 55 percent Republican,” McAloon, a Republican precinct committeeman, said.  “A strong conservative Republican can win back this seat.   Many of the 75th District's voters are Reagan Democrats.”

“The people of this district tell me they are concerned about taxes and bond issues.  They’re also concerned about loss of good-paying jobs,” he said.  “Look at how higher business fees ran good paying trucking jobs out of state.  That's what the Democrats gave us. We need to bring productive industries back into the area and we need to cut taxes.”

While that’s the common conservative cry, reducing taxes in a tense political and fiscal climate is a hard sell.  What about expanding gambling to increase revenue?

“Looking to gambling to fix revenue problems is like stepping into quicksand,” McAloon said.  “You step in, you sink and you gradually sink deeper and die.  That’s a pretty good analogy. . .”

McAloon said the state’s income tax should be reduced a half-percent and the business fees raised two years ago by the Democrats should be repealed.  “We also need to look at TIFF laws.  They are being abused and misused,” he said.

And there needs to be a state budget re-prioritization which invests more in roads and infrastructure instead of programs that are unnecessary, he said.

McAloon, his wife and two sons, are active in the community and attend church at Tinley Park’s Family Harvest Church where McAloon has been a television show producer for the last ten years.  Prior to Family Harvest, the Illinois State University graduate was an operations manager at Ameritech.

McAloon said he has been interested in politics since the 1984 Reagan campaign and became familiar with Kankakee County politics while working for candidates such as Al Salvi, Peter Fitzgerald and Patrick O’Malley.  During those campaigns, he said, he found out first hand how badly the far south suburbs needed to develop strong Republican organizations.

As a result, McAloon helped start Kankakee/Will County area conservative network Virtue PAC with Dr. Calvin Slot.  Virtue PAC coordinates social conservative groups with anti-tax and pro-Second Amendment efforts.   McAloon stepped down from Virtue PAC's chairmanship in 2005, just before his first bid for state rep. 

McAloon brushes aside his loss in 2006 to Jason Briscoe, who the House Republicans backed in the primary.   He’s confident this election will not be a repeat of last year’s. 

“The House Republicans said they will stay out of the race if there’s a primary this time,” McAloon said, who says he’s heard of one other person circulating petitions for the 75th GOP slot.

“I believe strongly in citizen legislators versus career politicians,” McAloon said.  “I’ve got mixed thoughts about term limits, but I do think people need to know their representatives and feel that if they’re not doing their jobs, they can throw them out.  With all the problems the Democrats have caused in Illinois, 2008 could be one of those years when voters just want to throw the bums out.”

It certainly makes sense for McAloon to hope for next year to be that kind of year.

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Contact David McAloon’s campaign at: http://www.friendsformcaloon.org.

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