North Cook News

Schaumburg' Jillian Bernas, the Republican candidate for the District 56 state House seat, has recently been attacked in typical negative political ads by Democrat contender Michelle Mussman.

But the Watson family in her hometown came to her defense in a letter. 

In a video interview for the Chicago Daily Herald, each candidate answered a question about House Speaker Mike Madigan (D-Chicago) and whether they would vote for his leadership. Mussman danced around the question and said the focus should not solely be on Madigan but on the work done at the statehouse. In the end, however, she said she did not know if she would. 

Bernas said her opponent has supported Madigan throughout his reign as speaker and said she would definitely not support Madigan's continued leadership with her vote. Both candidates said they were reaching out to members of the opposite party in their district who may be dissatisfied over the current budget debate. Bernas has run a steady platform of budget reform in her campaign. 

Recently, Bernas came out and accused Mussman of dishonest political propaganda with the widespread use of negative campaign ad mailers targeting her and her campaign. Bernas' Facebook wall shows a screenshot of a letter decrying such tactics, defending Bernas. The letter was signed by The Watson Family in Schaumburg:

"'The lady doth protest too much, methinks' is a quotation from the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare

How many anti-Jillian, glossy, full-color mailers have you received? We are willing to bet it’s getting close to filling a garbage bag. When you consider the financial mismanagement of the Illinois budget and wonder how this can happen and who is responsible, then consider for a moment the total cost of the “anti-Jillian” mailers you have received. Please then multiply this by the population in our district and think how that money could be better put to use. You can begin to understand the mentality of the candidate sending such rhetoric and why we struggle to pay for the nursing homes that care for the aged and disabled or Medicaid patients whose funding runs dry, or pensions for hard-working teachers and state employees that receive inadequate funding. Sometimes a candidate’s desire to remain in power becomes so great that they lose the message behind why they are elected. Our family has known Jillian and the Bernas family well before she went into politics. Jillian works hard to make the lives of those around her better. We sincerely hope my friends and neighbors don’t pay attention to the ridiculous negative ad campaigns raining down on your mailbox. She is not a politician, but simply someone who wants to make our lives better and the attacks upon her are not unlike the actions of a bully on a school yard playground. We have never liked bullies and I don’t think we should allow it to be a vessel for allowing a candidate to stay elected. We call on our neighbors in this district to take a stand. Vote for Jillian. 

The Watson Family - Schaumburg" 

Bernas' response via social media was as follows:

"I am thankful to have people in my community who have known me and my family for years who can see right through the negative mailers and work hard to tell their neighbors about me. Thank you to all of you."

Brian Watson in Schaumburg told the North Cook News in an email that several of these negative mailers depict the candidate in a dishonest manner.

 "Five different mailers, sent two each per household," Watson said in an email to the North Cook News. "They have been coming at this rate since the race began. I’ve been getting mailers like these blaming Jillian for everything under the sun."

Watson admitted some of them were creative to say the least. 

"My favorite was Jillian 'A woman herself' being accused of supporting Trump’s extreme views on women," Watson said. It would not surprise me if Jillian was blamed for global warming next week." 

Watson said the size of the campaign must be enormous. 

"When you consider there are approximately 108,000 people in the 56th District, and let’s be nice and say only five mailers per week per person, that would be about a half-million mailers per week," Watson said. "You start to wonder how many trees died to support such a negative ad campaign. Starting to look like a small forest at this point. Not to mention the poor use of money."

Money, specifically state spending and budgets, is the focal point of Bernas' campaign.  

"Come to think of it: in this instance, I think we can blame Mrs. Mussman for global warming, and maybe her spending policies as state representative are of similar habit. What was Illinois’ debt again? Character is like a tree and reputation is like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing – Quote from Abraham Lincoln. These mailers are Mrs. Mussman’s attempt to cast a false shadow on the character of Jillian. But like the tree in Lincoln’s parable, Jillian’s true character remains the same. The sad part of politics nowadays is the people of our great nation respond too easily to false shadows granting victory to candidates skillful in the art of deception while allowing such deception to blind us to candidates of good character whom don’t engage in such deceptive tactics. I find such ads not only insulting to Jillian but to all voters in the district. How foolish are we if we believe such ads?  Frankly it’s 'We the People’s' fault for not seeing through what should be seen as obvious attempts to deceive us. Perhaps it’s a statement of our failures that we have given ourselves only poor choices for our next president. So here we are, faced with a false shadow telling us not to vote for the honest young public servant who wants to make a difference. What will you do? I can’t speak to Jillian being a good politician, but I can speak to her being a good person whom has the background and the will to make a positive difference. The question is do we the voters of the 56th District have the vision and the wisdom to see past the false shadows and see the real tree that is Jillian’s good character."

The Watson family will be voting for Bernas in the upcoming election and character attacks in ad campaigns will be over in the interim, but financial policy will still be a hot topic at the legislature in Illinois for whoever wins, Bernas or Mussman.