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Elaine Nekritz is one of the most sincere people you’ll ever meet. That might have made it hard for her to be successful in politics, but during her 14-year career in the Illinois House – she retired in 2017 – Elaine earned a reputation as a straight-shooting progressive force. She says that while in office she nursed an introvert personality, sometimes dreading the need to glad hand scores of strangers. It was competitiveness, she says, that kept her going.