My Kind of Town, Chicago Is

It was a bad day for Illinois, with Governor Blagojevich charged with corruption and the bankruptcy of the Tribune. The indictment is hair-raising, even for someone like myself who cut my journalistic teeth on Illinois politics.

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/blagocharged.pdf


Throughout the intercepted conversations, Blagojevich allegedly spent significant timeweighing the option of appointing himself to the open Senate seat and expressed a variety of reasons for doing so, including: frustration a tbeing "stuck" as governor; a belief that he will be able to obtain greater resources if he is indicted as a sitting Senator as opposed to a sitting governor; a desire to remake his image in consideration of apossible run for President in 2016; avoiding impeachment by the Illinois legislature; making corporate contacts that would be of value to himafter leaving public office; facilitating his wife's employment as a lobbyist; and generating speaking fees should he decide to leave public office.

I'm sure this scandal is just the tip of the iceburg. As to whether it will touch the new administration, only time will tell. My guess is that it will indirectly, and the Republicans must be happy at that prospect. My guess also is that the governor and his wife are going to get frog-walked to Stateville Prison. The Republicans can indeed reclaim their power but it must be on the basis of integrity and competence in contrast to the Democrats, and this may give them an opening.

But what is it about Illinois politics that is so conducive to corruption? I think it is the combination of entrenched machine politics-- the downstate Republican machine and the city Democratic machine and almost non-existent public financing laws and a compliant local media.