Dan Seals Campaign: Gas Stunt Worthwhile

In the wake of the Dan Seals "Gas for Votes" media stunt last week, CBS 2 Chicago and the Lincolnshire Review are reporting that Dan Seals Congressional campaign spokesperson, Elisabeth Smith, is characterizing the $2,200. bill sent to the 10th District office seeker in the wake of the incident by the Village of Lincolnshire as "worth it." Seals' stunt last week taxed local police resources so severely that half the police force was diverted from other duties to sort out noon-time traffic issues on busy Milwaukee Avenue, a major north-south thoroughfare. The local police chief was furious that the campaign failed to notify his office in advance of the stunt, which offered half price gas (the price difference subsidized by the campaign) to only the first fifty motorists to show up, a fact that Seals never revealed in his promotion for the event. The village issued a bill to the campaign, another standard practice in the northern suburbs area when public resources are used for private purposes.

Seals, who lives in the nearby 9th Congressional District and is a new to the area, has not apologized to the Lincolnshire police or the inconvenienced drivers, but rather is boasting to his supporters that traffic lined up over a mile, and that the police had to direct traffic.