Two Republicans emerge for House race

from the Daily Herald

Two Republicans emerge for House race

Primary needed to decide who could face new Democrat Froehlich

By Eric Peterson
epeterson@dailyherald.com
Posted Thursday, August 09, 2007

Newly Democratic state Rep. Paul Froehlich of Schaumburg found himself with not one but two challengers eager to reclaim his office for the Republican Party Wednesday.
Schaumburg Township District Library President Anita Forte-Scott has won the backing of the state GOP for the nomination, said House Minority Leader Tom Cross’s spokesman David Dring.
But also running, regardless of the party support Forte-Scott is receiving, is Hoffman Estates business owner Aaron Muller.
That means before either faces Froehlich, Muller and Forte-Scott will first have to face each other in the 2008 primary.
Forte-Scott was elected to the library board in 2005, becoming president a year later.
Newly elected to the board this spring was Froehlich’s wife, Marilyn. She and Forte-Scott have already had a few frosty exchanges in their time together on the board, particularly in debating an appointment to fill a vacancy.
“It should make those (library board) meetings even more interesting than they have been,” Paul Froehlich said.
But Forte-Scott said her candidacy will have no impact on what she feels is the non-political nature of library business.
“When I’m in the board room for the library, my main focus is running the library,” she said. “I personally will not engage in any kind of misbehavior or anything else that would be inappropriate in a library board meeting.”
Even if elected in November 2008, she plans to stay in her current office through at least the start of her first legislative session and possibly until the end of her library term just a few months later, if the workload is bearable.
Both she and Muller seemed unsure Wednesday how to approach their rivalry in the primary.
Muller said he was disappointed by the GOP’s decision to back Forte-Scott as he’d been gearing up to run against Froehlich for months.
“He’s probably rejoicing that the first person who was a real threat to him has been suppressed by not being nominated,” Muller said of Froehlich. “Now I’ve got to go up against this woman whom I don’t have even one single bone to pick with. I don’t have any ill intent toward her. I don’t even know her.”
Muller said that his lack of political experience may have been held against him. But he pointed out that Froehlich’s experience provided no guarantee of what voters could expect from him — or even that he’d leave the party.
Froehlich, too, said he might face an opponent in the Democratic primary, but he feels he’s the candidate who’ll be supported by the state party.
Forte-Scott said Froehlich’s recent defection to the Democrats was also what turned her thoughts about running for higher office someday more specific.