Sangamon Sun

Cards Against Humanity's Black Friday fundraising stunt, the Fordham Spire and Illinois politics have something in common, about which two hosts on a conservative radio talk show recently speculated.

All three are pointless holes, Dan Proft, host of "Illinois Rising," commented to his co-host, Chicago Tribune editorial board member Kristen McQueary, during a recent edition of the show. McQueary said she could see an important point of divergence between Illinois politics and the Cards Against Humanity fundraiser.

"I mean, they're figurative, often, too," McQueary said. "The money just disappears into a black hole, but this is real; this is a literal hole."

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The literal hole McQueary is talking about, which wasn't Illinois politics, is the intentional hole dug by Cards Against Humanity, famed for its party game for horrible people.

"It can be provocative for the whole family," Proft quipped as he alluded to the political metaphor.

This past Black Friday, Cards Against Humanity announced a fundraiser.

"They've been doing Black Friday stunts for a few years now," Proft said. "They decided for this year's Black Friday stunt, they would do a Holiday Hole."

Though many questions about the hole remain unanswered, including the hole's location, the company promised to continue digging its pointless hole so long as people continued to send in money.

"An actual hole," Proft said.

While not officially identified, WIFR TV in Rockford reported the Cards Against Humanity Holiday Hole was being dug in the small town of Oregon, Illinois, on the banks of the Rock River, about 25 miles from Rockford. The location was confirmed by the Ogle County Zoning Office, the TV station said. Naturally, video of the digging of Cards Against Humanity's pointless hole soon turned up on YouTube.

The company raised more than $100,000 in about a week.

The obvious metaphor was too tempting for Proft, well known in Illinois for his barbed criticism of state and local politics. Proft also is co-founder, with Pat Hughes, of the Illinois Opportunity Project and is Liberty Principles PAC's chairman and treasurer, as well as a senior fellow at the Chicago-based think tank Illinois Policy Institute. "Illinois Rising" is a presentation of the Illinois Policy Institute.

Illinois politics has been a dark place for quite a while. More recently, state lawmakers and Gov. Bruce Rauner agreed to spend tens of millions to bail out two nuclear plants, but not Chicago Public Schools, and passed a stopgap budget, but not a full-blown, balanced budget. In November, Illinois voters kept the General Assembly in Democratic control, but without a state House super-majority. Illinois' public pension problems are the worst in the nation, Bloomberg News said.

Rauner's negotiations with the state's largest public employee union are at a standstill, and no new workers' compensation reform legislation has been filed in the General Assembly since last spring.

Proft said there is nothing wrong with Cards Against Humanity digging a pointless hole.

"We build pointless holes in Chicago," Proft said. "That's where the Fordham Spire was supposed to go. So we built that giant, pointless hole. Why can't they do it outside of Rockford?"