-By Warner Todd Huston
(New info updated at the end of the post)
Doug Ibendahl of RepublicanNewsWatch has named the “flake” operative that Senate candidate wannabe Mike Niecestro claimed screwed him out of enough signatures to file his independent candidacy papers this week. Ibendahl claims it was none other than former comptroller candidate William Kelly. I spoke to Kelly today about the accusations.
Mr. Kelly says that Niecestro’s claims that his whole independent bid fell apart because of Kelly’s failure to come through with the promised signatures is puzzling. “He didn’t even give me the final go ahead to do it until five days before the filing date,” Kelly told me.
Five days to get 25,000 signatures is not feasible, for sure.
Worse, Kelly says that Niecestro told him that he already had enough signatures to file and that Kelly’s efforts were to just “pad out the amount.” It should be remembered that only two weeks ago Niecestro was claiming that he had enough signatures to file as Crain’s Greg Hintz reported. Yet as the filing date came and went, Niecestro was no where to be seen.
As we reported, after the filing date passed and he failed to file his petitions, Niecestro then told ABC 7’s Charles Thomas that a well-known “flake” screwed him out of the signatures.
In the end, it does not matter what William Kelly did or didn’t do, it doesn’t matter what Ibendahl has or hasn’t said, what matters is that Mike Niecestro claimed to reporters that he already had the signatures, then it turned out he didn’t have them, he didn’t even file his candidacy, and then proceeded to bad mouth people in the media.
Niecestro is certainly an amateur in Illinois politics and that could be seen as a plus for his candidacy. But all this foolishness and his ultimate failure to even file proves that he has no capability to organize a campaign. It proves that his basic competence is highly questionable.
If Mike Niecestro intends to run a credible campaign, he better get serious next time… if there even is a next time.
**UPDATE**
From Kelly is proof that Niecestro gave Bill a check for $10,000 to help get signatures but, as is seen by the date on the check, it was under two weeks before the filing date, making that task virtually impossible for Kelly to fulfill. (see image of check HERE)
Then, Niecestro canceled the check anyway, reneging on the whole deal.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 200 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDailyReview.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
Huston has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events and is currently the co-host of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Conservatism” heard on BlogTalkRadio. Huston’s work has appeared on Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Neil Bortz, and Michael Savage. He has appeared on the G. Gordon Liddy show, dozens of local shows from coast to coast, and many blogtalk radio shows.
Mr. Huston has appeared on local TV news to discuss his writing, has been a guest of CNN’s blogger lunch, and has appeared on Breitbart TV’s B-Team show.
Warner is also the editor of the Cook County Page for RedCounty.com and has a blog on the Tribune-Owned http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/publius-forum/ChicagoNow.com website. He is a well known writer on Illinois politics.
He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of PubliusForum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston