Foul Words, 'Good Things': How Tinley Candidates Get You To Vote

TINLEY PARK, IL — With five days left before the election, your mailboxes, windshields, yards and garbage cans are probably littered with campaign literature.

Flyers rained on Tinley this year as two parties fight for three open seats on the village board. Another storm of mailings is expected in the days ahead.

Love them or hate them -- political messages are vital because an informed electorate is important in a democracy.

So we were curious about how Tinley's candidates were trying to persuade you to vote for them. We ask you to send copies to us, and we collected at least 16 pieces from trustee candidates and a school board slate from all of you. Our list is by no means exhaustive, but it does give a glimpse into how issues and the election are being handled this year.

The collection turned out to offer an interesting mix of content.

Concerned Citizens for Tinley Park, mayor Jacob Vandenberg's party, mailed at least eight flyers to residents this season, while One Tinley Park, co-founded by trustee Michael Glotz, mailed at least six.

Some took a nasty turn — CCTP's literature printed foul language that had been attributed to Glotz in the past. One Tinley, while it sometimes took opponents to task, kept a more moderate tone in its messaging.

Note that neither Vandenberg nor Glotz are running, although that's hard to tell from the flyers. CCTP's candidates are Michael McGuire, Michael Pannitto and John Curran. One Tinley's slate is Diane Galante, Michael Mueller and William Brennan.

Some of the claims were loose with the truth. Patch's analysis of campaign contributions, for example, do not necessarily back up assertions made in some of the flyers.

We were wondering, too, about strategy: What makes a campaign "go negative?" And how many flyers are too many flyers? We spoke with Jhonmar Castillo, a managing partner with Foremost Strategy, for some answers. His firm creates digital marketing strategies for municipal, judicial and other campaigns. Castillo said he does not work with Tinley's candidates and is not familiar with the parties.

"Mailers are the worst," he said.

That's because mailers suppress voters because they oppress them, Castillo said. They don't give people a way out of seeing them -- they appear, unsolicited, in the mail -- and don't offer a way for people to respond to them.

"People already feel like 'I don't want your mailer,'" he said. Negativity compounds the problem.

Castillo acknowledged that it's tougher than ever before for candidates to get their ideas and platforms out because voters are fed up with negative messaging that has been pervasive since the 2016 presidential election. Voters no longer trust the press or officials because the truth has been drowned out by political operatives and ghost organizations whose job it is to develop negative, harsh, untruthful -- or even fabricated -- facts and stories that bombard them 24/7 through digital media. People don't have the stomach for any political messaging anymore despite a candidates' best intentions, he said.

That's why he advises his clients to always "go positive."

"I will give the edge to any party or candidate who is on the positive side, and when there is an attacker, who can get over that and talk about issues."

Voters, he said, pay attention to that.

If you look close enough, he added, you'll also notice that attack ads tend to be used when the party or candidate has no plan to offer the electorate. Instead of articulating their vision or how the administration will look after the election, they go on the offensive. It's a fear tactic.

With negative ads, he said "at the end of the day as a voter, I am not getting the information I need. How do I even make a choice when all they're doing is saying who is nastier than the other one?"

"I will give props and high fives to the ones who are trying to be positive in this environment," Castillo added. "It's easy to be negative." It takes work to be positive.

If you really hate mailed literature, take heart. Castillo said they are a stale tactic that will go extinct within the next two election cycles.

"Who knows? At least we are working on it," he said.

One note about the flyers attached to this story: We published the ones sent to us and honored requests to keep contributions anonymous. All identifying information was removed by Patch either by cropping names and addresses out or by covering them with black boxes. You can see front- and back-sides of the mailed pieces in our slideshow.