7 Is Bigger Than 17 In One Politician's World

We teased yesterday the big mistake that Mike Frerichs made in the release of his latest infographic.

And today, we're here to share it with you.  

This is the latest in a long (unbelievably long, actually) string of mistakes and errors coming out of the Mike Frerichs campaign.  Based on their record, one can only assume that they're either very lazy or just plain dumb.  Either one is a bad trait for a politician.  

In Mike Frerichs' world, 7% is apparently 'more' than 17%.  See his chart here:

If 'underbanked' is 17% of the population of Illinois, why is that segment of his 'pie chart' smaller than the orange 'unbanked' population - which he claims to be 7%.  Shouldn't the white segment be a bit bigger?  And the orange one smaller?  

Attention to detail is NOT something they teach at Yale, we guess.  Germanic Studies FTW!

Of Course! Mike Frerichs Rolls Out Infographic, Includes Errors

You remember the last time Mike Frerichs - candidate for Illinois Treasurer - rolled out a policy-based infographic, don't you?  He had five - count 'em - five mistakes/errors.

You can see one of them here where he used 'compliment' instead of 'complement'.  And you can see the full list of the mistakes here.

Well...this morning, "Tax Hike" Mike Frerichs rolled out another infographic.  This time about 'banking deserts'.

And...in typical Mike Frerichs campaign fashion, they goofed up.  We've cropped just a little bit of the infographic they so gleefully emailed around this morning.

Can you spot the mistake?

We'll give the Frerichs campaign some time to come clean and fix the graphic before we post the details of their errors.

The Mike Frerichs Campaign Still Hasn't Updated Their Flawed Infographic

It has been more than 24 hours since we walked you through the five errors that the Mike Frerichs for Illinois State Treasurer campaign made in their so-called "Eco-Ag" Infographic.

If you tune into the infographic on his site right now, you'll see that they still haven't made any updates.  Either they think voters don't care about stupid word-choice errors or they're too lazy to change them?

Another Mike Frerichs Blunder: Proposes A Plan That Already Exists In Illinois

As we alluded to earlier today, the typos, mistakes, and errors that are sprinkled throughout the "Eco-Ag" infographic that the Mike Frerichs for State Treasurer campaign put out are just a VERY small part of the overall issue with what Mike Frerichs is proposing.

And...this bigger problem really speaks to his lack of knowledge of what the Illinois Treasurer actually does.  We have to ask, "Does Mike Frerichs really know what it take to be Treasurer?"

The details:  Turns out, the signature "Eco-Ag" proposal that the Frerichs campaign spent the summer designing is in fact rendered moot.  As in...it already exists.  There's no reason to spend a minute discussing the efficacy of the program.  Zero.

For some color, let's turn to this weekend's edition of the Springfield State Journal-Register where we find out - via a confirmation from the current State Treasurer's office - that EVERYTHING...yes EVERYTHING that Mike Frerichs has proposed is ALREADY in place.

“Mike Frerichs’ lack of knowledge of the office he seeks to occupy is nothing short of staggering. Time and again the Democratic State Senator has exhibited a disturbing level of unawareness that should deeply concern Illinois voters,” said Kevin Artl, Cross for Treasurer Campaign Manager. “His last miscue? Frerichs announced a new program for farmers, that already exists. This comes on the heels of Frerichs calling for a divestiture of Illinois’ investment in Israel, which followed a litany of other gaffes. A clear indication of how someone will perform in office is reflected in how they conducted themselves previously, and thus far, Frerichs has demonstrated a penchant for loving every tax increase that crossed his desk and tripping all over himself on the campaign trail.”

So...let us get this straight:  The same guy who didn't know that the only foreign investment that the State of Illinois makes is in Israel is the candidate who proposes a program that already exists?

Thanks for wasting everyone's time here, Mike.

Also...*this* is why people are cynical about politics:  everyone thinks that candidates just make stuff up.  Turns out, in Mike Frerichs' case: it is true.

Summary: Did You Spot The 5 Mistakes From Mike Frerichs And His "Eco-Ag" Plan?

We're not going to lie:  we don't think this is going to go down as a series of "happy accidents" over in Champaign at the Mike Frerichs campaign headquarters.

As a reminder, more than 10 days ago, the Frerichs' campaign gleefully put out their "Eco-Ag" plan with accompanying infographic.  They sent it via email blast.  They posted it to their Facebook Wall.  They posted it on their campaign site.

The problem?  It was chocked-full of errors, mistakes, and problems.  The biggest one?  Oh...that's too sweet to share here.  We'll post on that shortly.

But...what did they do?  They've fixed some of these since we called them on it, but not all of them yet.

Mistake 1: They had a random period that they needed to remove.

Mistake 2: They used the word 'effect' instead of 'affect'.

Mistake 3: In successive sentences, they used "the state's" and "the State's". They still don't know which one is proper.

Mistake 4: They forgot to hyphenate their descriptor. It isn't "Small scale". It is "Small-scale".

Mistake 5: They used "compliment" instead of "complement".

Now...if you were a sophomore in high school and you were writing a term paper on "How to Kill a Mockingbird", then these would just be sloppy mistakes.  Probably went to fast and didn't check your work closely.

But...when you are running for Statewide office in Illinois and this appears to be your signature program that ties together one of your interests (the environment) to the job you want (State Treasurer), there's no way this could have been rushed.  In fact, it probably got worked on all summer.

And they still made these errors?  That's not sloppy.  That's not lazy.  That's just dumb.  

And we can tolerate a lot in our politicians:  ambitious, hard-charging.  Hell...we can even tolerate aloofness.  But we here in Illinois can't tolerate dumb.  

Mistake #5: We're Sure Mike Frerichs Loves To Get Compliments, But His Program Should "Complement"

Here's a quick definition breakdown for you folks down in Champaign courtesy of Google pasted below.  You would have thought that they'd teach you the difference between compliment and complement over at Yale, right?

So...what word did Mike Frerichs - candidate for Illinois State Treasurer - use in his infographic?  The wrong one.  Remember....more than 10 days ago, the campaign gleefully emailed this thing around.  They then posted it on their Facebook Wall, Twitter handle.  They were so pleased with it.

Then...we called them on their errors.  They fixed a few.  But...did they get this one?  Nope. Check out what the orange section looks like right NOW on the Frerichs for Treasurer campaign site:

Forget for a moment that the program that he's proposing is ALREADY in action in Illinois.  Please...let's just forget that and focus on these errors.

After seeing these five errors, we don't think ANYONE is going to 'compliment' the Frerichs campaign on their strong effort.

If you haven't reviewed the other errors on this one simple infographic from the Frerichs' campaign, check out our easy-to-follow summary post that lists them all here.

Mistake #4: You Forgot To Hyphenate The Descriptor

What's surprising is that the Mike Frerichs team got this right (or...would they say 'write'!) in other spots, but for some reason they failed to hyphenate the phrase "Small-scale" in "Small-scale wind farming".

Let's hope they update it.

For those keeping track:

Mistakes on this infographic from the Mike Frerichs for Illinois Treasurer team:

Error #1: They had a random period that they needed to remove.
Error #2:  They used the word 'effect' instead of 'affect'.
Error #3:  In successive sentences, they used "the state's" and "the State's".  They still don't know which one is proper.
Error #4: This one!  They forgot the hyphen.

We'll Give The Frerichs Team A Hint: Another Error Is In This Section

Yep...there's at least one error in this section we've screenshot from your website, guys.  Can you find it?  We'll give you an hour.

Mistake #3 On Mike Frerichs Eco-Ag Infographic

One of these is wrong.  We know which one.  But...we're not sure that the smart folks down in Champaign at the Mike Frerichs for Illinois Treasurer campaign office know which one is wrong.

So...we're just going to place this image here, point out that this is CLEARLY wrong.  There's a inconsistency between these two circled phrases.

Can the Frerichs' team figure out which one is wrong?  And correct it???

For those of you counting at home:  this is error #3 that the Frerichs campaign made on their infographic about their "proposal" (we use proposal lightly...for now!).

Pay Attention, Frerichs Staffers. It is "Affect Not Effect"

Above, in a nutshell, you'll see the second error that the Mike Frerichs for State Treasurer campaign made when it comes to putting out their infographic:  they used effect instead of the word affect.

Here's a screenshot of the version they so gleefully emailed around and posted on Facebook:

Again...after we called them out, they scampered back into the design offices and quickly updated their published infographic to use the right word.

Here's how it looks now:  you'll note the updated version to reflect "affect".  It is important to note in this screenshot what *hasn't* changed.  Why?  Because...there's another error up there that they didn't get to just yet.  Will they?  Before we post???

But...again:  we have to ask:  is this stuff so hard?  Shouldn't a statewide political campaign catch this stuff before it goes out the door?  Is that too much to ask?

To summarize:  we're up to two errors - both that have been fixed since we called on the Frerichs' campaign to fix them - but there are more coming!  Stay tuned!

We Gave The Mike Frerichs' Team An Extra Day (And They *Still* Didn't Fix Everything!)

As you'll recall, we called on the Mike Frerichs for Illinois State Treasurer campaign to fix the numerous problems with their so-called "Eco-Ag" infographic.  We gave them until Monday morning before we would start to post the issues.

Well...it is Tuesday morning, and the time has come:  unfortunately, for the campaign there's two problems:

1.  They did't fix all their problems.
2.  They actually have a bigger problem with their proposal...but...we'll get to that in a minute (and a later post).

So...without further delay, let's take a peek at the first - of many - problems that the Mike Frerichs team put together in their infographic.

In the originally published version which was emailed, posted on social media, and posted on the Frerichs' campaign site, they forgot to work on their punctuation.  As you can see in the dark blue section here, they put a period after the middle sentence.  But failed to put them after the first and last one.

Whoops.

After we posted our initial findings (including the mention of two missing periods), the Frerichs' campaign updated their version and included them.  You can go see the 'current' one here.  (That's version 3 for those of you counting at home!)

Here's what they did:  they took out the period to make it work properly.  Good for them!  But..it was more than a week after they initially published it.

Will Tax Hike Mike's Team Beat The Monday Deadline?

That's the big question.  What do you think?  Will they get in the rest of the changes by Monday?  Or will we have to fully embarrass them by documenting ALL of the problems they had with their big "Eco-Ag" infographic?

Let's give them some music to work against today:

Ding. Ding. The Frerichs Campaign Makes Another Correction To Their Infographic!

The geniuses down in Champaign have made another fix to their failed infographic!  That makes two.  One word choice and some punctuation fixes.  

But...it still leaves one big word choice error and another we'll call a 'consistency error'.

You can see the currently updated version on the Mike Frerichs for State Treasurer website here.

But..don't be fooled folks.  That wasn't the one they put out with so much glee over email last week or shared yesterday via social.  Nope.  It was this one below.  With all the errors in their full glory!

How many more rounds of revisions will it take them?  Will they beat us to the Monday deadline by fixing all of the errors?  

We'll have to wait and see!

The Mike Frerichs Campaign Team Caught One Of the Mistakes (So Far!)

Well, well, well...Looks as though the Mike Frerichs for Illinois Treasurer campaign team has been busy overnight as they've worked to correct ONE of the many mistakes they've made on their Eco-Ag infographic.

But...fortunately for all of us, they just found the one mistake when there are oh-so-many more!

We won't tip you to the one change they've made, but perhaps you can spot it.  Here's a link to the page on Frerichs' site that has their slightly amended language up right now.

But...here's the one (pasted below) that they published so proudly yesterday on their site, on Facebook, and even sent out in an email last week.  This is the one you should be working to find mistakes from (below).

Remember folks...you have until Monday am to send us the list of mistakes you found!