Does this make me a politician?

Spoke to the Northern Illinois Chinese Association, part of an afternoon forum on the role Chinese-Americans can play in DuPage County politics, party politics and national politics.

I won’t recount all the details here; Hiram Wurf did a nice job of that over at the Naperville Democrats website. It was interesting to follow Kirk Dillard in the presentations; it was the first time I’ve done something so overtly political with someone from the opposing side speaking at the same event.

Most interesting to me: Dillard’s assertion (later echoed by Jennifer Fritz, Vice Chair of the Naperville Republicans) that DuPage County is a wonderful county, and Naperville is a great city, because it’s run by Republicans. Dillard laid the foundation for this argument by suggesting in his speech that the Republican party is the party of local control. Nice syllogism. (Fritz even went so far as to suggest that the problems with the Chicago schools boiled down to the fact that Democrats control Chicago.)

Nevermind that whole “checks and balances” notion that must seem so quaint to the Republicans these days. (Cue Ashcroft.) The argument just doesn’t really hold up under scrutiny. But that doesn’t mean it’s not an effective message in front of a group of uncommitted (and politically uninformed) voters.

In any event, it was a lot of fun. In two weekends, I’m doing a similar debate at a church forum. My opponent will be Senator Peter Roskam. I hear he’s a bit more conservative than Senator Dillard.