North Cook News

Dan Gott, Republican candidate for the District 55 state House seat, recently squared off with his opponent, state Rep. Marty Moylan (D-Des Plaines) in a heated debate that ended with Gott telling Moylan “you’re fired," referring to what he calls Moylan’s lack of accomplishments while in office.

In front of a crowd of nearly 200, Gott and Moylan joined four other candidates for a 90-minute exchange that was organized by the Journal and Topics Media Group.

“I am a retired engineer who worked in private industry for 40 plus years,” Gott told the debate crowd. “Companies I have worked for have a standard rule you must follow, or else. It goes like this... ‘results talk and everything else walks’...so you’re fired,” Gott said as he pointed to Moylan.

Dan Gott | Contributed photo

While Moylan displayed clips of his many newspaper endorsements to the debate crowd, Gott responded by saying his opponent is a political insider favored by the media.

“It’s the same old story: The biased news media builds up my opponent and helps him get re-elected before the upcoming election on November 8," Gott said.

Not only did Gott go after Moylan on his record since being elected to the state House in 2012, but he also drew a contrast between his campaign funding compared with Moylan’s.

“Moylan is a chameleon; he will say anything to get re-elected,” Gott said. “He gets all his money from Chicago and Springfield Democrats that are part of Madigan’s political machine, whose tentacles spread out over the entire state.”

Gott told the North Cook News in a post-debate interview that he is spearheading change for Illinois.

“I am running a grassroots campaign, a concerned citizen, spending what money is available to get the word out to tell voters to elect me to turn around Illinois,” Gott said.

Throughout the debate, Gott used many opportunities to link Moylan and House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) together, saying Madigan has led to the corruption of Illinois, as well as the state’s financial crisis.

“We are broke; unpaid bills are over $8.5 billion, and the accrued pension liability is greater than $200 billion,” Gott said. “Madigan refuses to negotiate with Gov. (Bruce) Rauner to approve a balanced budget. During the last two election cycles, my opponent, Marty Moylan, has voted 'yes' each time to elect Madigan as House speaker. Guess who votes 'yes' with Madigan and his agenda 98 percent of the time?” Gott said.

And again, Gott pointed to the source of Moylan's campaign largesse.

“Moylan is finishing up his second term and expects to be re-elected for a third term as state representative,” Gott said. “He gets lots of money from Madigan, over $1 million to keep getting re-elected. The cost-benefit ratio to taxpayers is too high, and voters must say ‘no’ to Moylan and the status quo on November 8.”

Gott said Moylan's record speaks for itself.

“Mr. Moylan did not have a lot of recent and past accomplishments to show considering Illinois is in a state of financial ruin, and it’s only getting worse,” Gott said.