Jay Kinzler and his wife headed out early to the train station to greet commuters on Valentine’s Day and cheer them up with special cookies.
“My wife had ordered Valentine’s Day cookies from the special bakery that she likes,” Kinzler, the Glen Ellyn Republican running in the GOP primary in the 46th House District, told the DuPage Policy Journal. “They all came individually wrapped and we put ‘Vote for Kinzler for Illinois’ (on them). Sometimes in the winter months, it is dark. It is cold and dreary. Everybody is bummed out that they have to go to work but when you give them a cookie they kind of lighten up a little bit, which is nice.”
Kinzler added that they picked the Villa Park station because it was one of the main commuter stations in the district.
Jay Kinzler and Pastor Mike Klamecki
“We went through the cookies pretty quick; a couple trains and they were gone. We passed out about two or three hundred cookies,” he said.
Many of the commuters were familiar faces to Kinzler, who had spent some time in the area seeking signatures to get on the ballot.
“A lot of them talked and said ‘We are glad we supported you’ and that was nice,” he said. “It makes you feel like you are part of the community. They feel you are invested in their day to day lives.”
He said many people would stop and talk and accept his literature, even if they declined a cookie.
“One of the things that people were concerned about on the train platform was just how much they are paying in taxes; how much the state income tax was just heightened by my opponent. They were also concerned about the corruption and one party system. It is dominated by (House Speaker) Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) who has been in power for decades now,” he said. “I think people are really ready for a change now.”
Kinzler also struck up a conversation with a pastor who was there to mark Ash Wednesday. Pastor Mike Klamecki from New Hope Community Church was giving out ashes to commuters. “He had his candle there and a couple of assistants,” Kinzler said.
“He said he had been doing it for the last five or six years for Ash Wednesday to make it convenient. So a commuter was able to go and get a cookie and then ashes from Pastor Mike,” he said.
Jay wrote on his Facebook page that he and his wife got their ashes while they were there.
“What he was passing out was more important than what we were,” he wrote. “We like Rev. Mike. Thank you."
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