Mike Niecestro is an Independent Conservative in Illinois who made waves last week when he announced that he would run for the U.S. Senate in Illinois as an Independent and spend up to $1 million on his campaign. Niecestro, however, has conceded his campaign since he collected just over 25,000 signatures in total, making any challenge to his petitions likely to succeed. It is not clear whether he turned in those signatures, meaning someone would have to challenge his petitions in order for him to not make the ballot, or whether he simply conceded the race and decided not to turn in those signatures. Niecestro said he intended to support Randall Stufflebeam–the Senatorial candidate of the Constitution Party of Illinois.
Mike Niecestro Fails To Qualify For Illinois Ballot, Endorses Stufflebeam
June 22nd, 2010 · 11 Comments
Filed Under: Constitution Party
11 responses so far ↓
1 Ross // Jun 22, 2010 at 9:04 am
Do you know what’s happening to that money?
2 Trent Hill // Jun 22, 2010 at 12:33 pm
No idea. I’d imagine he’ll keep it. He might make a sizeable donation to Stufflebeam, I guess.
3 princeliberty // Jun 22, 2010 at 1:23 pm
He announced he had twice that number a month ago. I strongly suspect the Republicans paid him off.
4 Joe Bell // Jun 22, 2010 at 2:53 pm
I just spoke with Mike. He did NOT endorse Stufflebeam. He will be clarifying things shortly.
5 Joe Bell // Jun 22, 2010 at 2:55 pm
As for why he dropped out, there was no payoff. He was sabatoged by a signature contractor. Welcome to the streetfight that is Chicago politics.
6 LibertarianGirl // Jun 22, 2010 at 3:28 pm
Stufflebeam… cool name!!!
7 Trent Hill // Jun 22, 2010 at 7:14 pm
Joe,
Multiple sources have said he planned to “support Stufflebeam”.
8 Patrick Gurrie // Jun 23, 2010 at 4:32 pm
Trent Hill: I don’t know what our definition of a “sizable donation” might be but Niecestro and his wife together can only donate a maximum of $2,000 to any candidate for federal office in any election cycle and we are already in the fall cycle for this year. Stufflebeam is already the nominee of that party and there is no time or date for that party to hold a primary so the fall maximum donation applies now.
9 Patrick Gurrie // Jun 23, 2010 at 4:36 pm
Sorry, a correction is needed. The FEC web site says the maximum donation from an individual has been raised to $2,400 per cycle so a couple could now give $4,800.
10 Mike Niecestro // Jun 27, 2010 at 10:16 pm
With regards to my campaign. Nobody paid me off. My wife and I personally collected in excess of 18,000 signatures and with the help of my family and friends collected a total of 25,642 signatures. On June 16, 2010, William Kelly, who was introduced to me by Chris Arndt from the Bureau county TEA Party PROMISED he would get me 40,000 signatuures to help us through any challenge. I was suspicious and called the deal off on Saturday, June 19, 2010. I specifically told Chris Arndt I don’t trust him. He emailed me and told me I was losing my chance should he not help me. We donated $10,000 to REV Productions and he wanted $10,000. more when signatures were complete. All week leading up to the june 23rd deadline he gave us the false hope that all is great and we were to have a press conference once the signatures were done. That man delivered not one single signature and help ruin what my wife and busted our rear ends on for almost 3 months. The sad part was we would have won this race for we had much more money than noted. Now it is get even time. I will do everything in my power to see that Mark Kirk Losses. I will back Randy 100%
11 Trent Hill // Jun 27, 2010 at 11:45 pm
Mike–I hope that is true. If Randy were able to raise just $100,000, he could do incredible things.
Leave a Comment