Republican Mike Marron, who is vying for the Illinois 104th District House seat, is focusing his campaign on looking toward the state's future and is hoping his optimistic outlook for Illinois will resonate with voters.
Marron, a fourth-generation Illinois farmer, will face off against Democrat Cynthia Cunningham in November's general election.
He says he sees the state's current host of problems as a temporary setback.
Mike Marron
"Some people look at politics in Springfield and are discouraged," Marron said on his campaign website. "They see corruption and no fiscal discipline. They feel our situation is hopeless, but not me. I see a momentary setback in a great story about great people who live in a great state with a rich history and an even brighter future."
"It is important for good people to write the next chapters of that story and to make it come out the way the people of our state deserve," he said on the site.
Marron said if elected, he wants to chart a new course to get Illinois back on track, especially for the sake of future generations.
"We have an obligation to our children and to our fellow residents of this great State to ensure that we get back on track," he said on his website.
On his campaign website, Marron spotlights the resilient spirit of his great-great-grandfather, an Irish immigrant who began his family's farm on the land where Marron farms and lives today, saying that same spirit will turn Illinois around.
"Despite the disappointment of the recent past, we must look to the future," Marron said on his website. "This is ground zero. It is time to start again, much like the poor Irish immigrant from 150 years ago."
Marron said he believes the state's debt and bringing people back to Illinois should be the top priorities of lawmakers.
"We need to make it priority number one to pay down the backlog of unpaid bills, start meeting our obligations and to put ourselves on sound fiscal footing for now and into the future," Marron said. "If we want people to come back to Illinois they must have confidence that we will be fiscally responsible, we will meet our obligations, and the rules won’t change in the middle of the game."
Marron has served on the Illinois Soybean Board and has represented farmers on the Commodity Boards, traveling to several countries and also hosting farming leaders from other countries.
He also served as a county board chairman where he managed nearly 400 employees and a $40 million budget.
"We built some of the greatest cities in the world with world-class universities, roads and bridges, locks and dams, and railways, becoming the hub of this nation," Marron says of Illinois. "We were the home of the Great Emancipator and the birthplace of Ronald Reagan," he said.
"Our proud political traditions were unmatched. That is our proud story. The real story we had told before we lost our way. It is the story we must get back. Time is a commodity and it's running short for the state to clean up its act."
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