LIBERTARIAN SECRETARY OF STATE CANDIDATE ADMITS DRUG USE

PEORIA - If Rod Blagojevich can make headlines by admitting he smoked
marijuana, then Matt Beauchamp is willing to fess up, too.

"I'd like to announce that I, too, have smoked marijuana," said the
Libertarian candidate for secretary of state. And, unlike Blagojevich, the
Democratic candidate for governor, "I did inhale and I did enjoy it and I
don't regret it."

Beauchamp made the personal disclosure at a news conference Tuesday - a
seemingly tongue-in-cheek jab at recent media coverage. Instead of focusing
on whether Blagojevich inhaled, the Libertarians believe the focus this
election should be on their platform and how it is the only one to offer
voters real change.

"If you want higher taxes and more corruption, you'll get it" if you vote
for the Republicans or Democrats, said Jim Tobin, Libertarian candidate for
lieutenant governor.

Tobin criticized a recent report by Gov. George Ryan's Education Funding
Advisory Board, which calls for some higher state taxes to help fund education.

"People should take their children out of public schools immediately and
put them into private schools," Tobin said.

"The private schools do it better and for less," said Tobin, who believes
state government should get out of education and "almost everything else
because all they do is screw it up."

Tobin said, if elected, he would work to do away with his office. He would
also immediately slash the lieutenant governor's budget by $2 million.