Exclusive: Illinois 81st House District Democratic candidate Unhoch still in race

My good friend John Unhoch, the Democratic candidate for the Illinois House in the 81st District in Chicago's far southwest suburbs, is the victim of sloppy reporting by TribLocal Orland Park. A wall posting from Unhoch on his Facebook campaign page was interpreted by reporter Rick Rouan to mean that Unhoch "could be bowing out of the race early."

But Rouan is wrong. Unhoch told me in an e-mail, "He obviously took a comment I made on my Facebook page out of context."

With that comment--John and did not say in that post that he was exiting the race--Unhoch expressed his frustration with the amount of dishonesty and corruption within state government. Remember, we're talking about Illinois here.

A missed telephone interview appointment allowed Rouan's imagination to "run wild," Unhoch explained.

John, who runs an Orland Park engineering consulting firm, is a straight-arrow whom I've known since grade school. He's a conservative, too. Rouan's report has caused great harm to the campaign of a good man.

An e-mail to Rouan asking for his side of things was unanswered.

UPDATE October 23: Rouan never did get back to me, but he wrote a new story about Unhoch, "Despite 'frustrating' process, 81st House district candidate staying in race." Odd, nowhere in the article is Marathon Pundit mentioned, although I broke the news first. But I'm glad to help John out. Oh...Unhoch never said he was quitting the race, so the "correction" story still gets it wrong.

Technorati tags:  Illinois politics Democrats chicago elections Illinois Politics chicago southland orland park