Chicago Young Republicans' sweet and shy art director Teresa O'Leary's got to be quietly delighting today at the thought of Vice-President Joe Biden seeing her golden-lettered "Right Here, Right Now" graphics design posted all over Chicago today. In town to raise funds for Democrats' U.S. Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias and 10th CD's Dan Seals, Biden won't be able to miss cab toppers, bill boards, CTA train wrappers and Els featuring O'Leary's Chicago skyline dominated by the GOP symbolic elephant, part of the Chicago Young Republicans' second annual summer membership promotion.
O'Leary's one of a team of Chicago YR professionals who've volunteered their expertise to return Chicago politics to a competitive two-party system. Without O'Leary and her team's services, the Chicago campaign wouldn't have been financially possible, CYR president Jeremy Rose said at the campaign's roll out last week in Chicago.
"[The campaign costs] a substantial amount, but because of all our internal resources, the entire campaign been done in house, we've not used a single outside agency," Rose said.
He then pointed to O'Leary's work as a key donation to the effort. "Teresa O'Leary is our great graphics designer for all our ad copy, so it's less than what one might think, but it's still substantial."
Two to three times expanded from the first year's $25,000 effort, Rose hopes to double the 900 members Chicago YRs boast. This year's membership party will be July 9th at the Cubby Bear.
O'Leary said she's very happy to have a part in the Chicago YRs effort. She says she first began following the Chicago YRs efforts on the internet after the 2008 Election. "I was really disappointed with the results and concerned about the next four years when Obama was elected," she said. "I wanted to do something. One day I just decided to show up at a CYR meeting. That night they were talking about trying to launch an ad campaign, and I figured that was a way I could help."
So O'Leary and other group members began working on last year's "It's Not Easy Being Right" membership campaign. She ended up with a whole new network of like-minded Chicagoans and as a free lance consultant, always a good thing for business.
"It wasn't my goal to network, but it's certainly been a benefit," she said. Teresa and her husband live on Chicago's northside, where she does much of her work from a home office.
If VP Biden looks around in Chicago while he's here today, he's sure to notice a change in Chicago over two years ago. That's because, as Teresa O'Leary's probably enjoying the thought of it today, he's seeing that the Republican Party is on its way back with her gray- and golden-lettered, "Right Here, Right Now" reminders everywhere.
"I wanted people to feel that this Party has a presence in the city," she said. "Whereas a lot of have felt there hasn't been any Republican presence here in quite some time."
Now to get the rest of the party to move.
To reach O'Leary, write toleary@chicagoyrs.com.
