Reflections on My Mom's Campaign for State Representative
As many of you know, my mom, Mary Rita Luecke ran in the open Democratic primary on March 20, 2018, in Illinois’ 17 th state house district. This piece is divided into three sections: Background on the political landscape and our analysis throughout the campaign The many feelings I felt as a daughter and an organizer throughout the campaign and a paragraph about why organizing is so important My personal takeaways, which is largely me kvelling (Yiddish for bursting with pride) about my mother The background When my mom first floated the idea of running for state representative six years ago, I selfishly wasn’t so excited by the idea. My dad was still in state government, I was organizing around state-level legislation and the idea of having both my parents so intimately connected to my public life seemed less than ideal. My mom interviewed with Mike Madigan’s people and her independence and progressive politics scared them away. They chose Laure F...