The Cook County Democratic Women's Organization Endorsement Committee met on Saturday and the only U. S. Senate candidate to appear before them was Gery Chico. Blair Hull sent his daughter, Megan, as a surrogate and the other candidates were no shows, notwithstanding that several had indicated they would appear or send surrogates. For example, I was told that Dan Hynes was going to send a "strong" surrogate, but none appeared. Gery Chico spoke clearly, articulately and intelligently about the issues for about twenty minutes and answered questions for another five minutes from a very sharp panel of four bright, insightful organization leaders. The organization is and the meeting was chaired by Rikki Jones. Others on the endorsement committee include Johnetta James, Shannon Blue, Shara Fata and Sheryl Ghezzi.

After Megan Hull spoke briefly, she was asked for Blair Hull's stand on domestic violence. "He is absolutely against domestic violence," Megan said. She went on to say that "a lot of the stuff in the papers is absolutely untrue," but she gave no specifics. Megan added that she lived with her father for 18 of her 30 years and stated, "He is not a violent man."