The Chicago media declared Gov. Rod
Blagojevich a winner after the spring legislative session ended
last week. Adjourning the session by May 31 and, for a change,
getting along with other Democrats, upholding his promise not to
raise taxes, and coming up with lots of new programs and
comprehensive medical-malpractice reform made him look pretty good
in many eyes.
“Blagojevich and top Democrats managed
to end the spring legislative session on time and on a surprising
high note,” reported the Sun-Times.
“As he shook hands and gave thumbs-up
signals among Democratic senators, Blagojevich’s smiling
demeanor was a far cry from only a few weeks earlier, when,
battered by criticism of cronyism and mismanagement, he retreated
from public view, his poll numbers sagging,” the Tribune noted.
After the session ended, the governor held
press conferences in several parts of the state to play up his new
budget’s increased funding for early childhood education. He
apparently wants to take full advantage while his window of
opportunity is still open.
That’s good politics for the short term,
but many problems lie ahead.
Just about every major-media reporter I know
is working on at least one big story about alleged corruption or
shady practices in the Blagojevich administration. Not all of these
investigations will bear fruit, of course, but we can expect plenty
of negative reports in the days and weeks ahead. His window could
close soon as reporters dig into the shenanigans at the Department
of Central Management Services, the state lottery, and hiring
practices all over the place.
And then there’s the Cook County grand jury,
which was announced shortly after the governor’s father-in-law,
Ald. Dick Mell of Chicago, accused Blagojevich and one of his pals of
trading appointments for campaign contributions. Mell recanted under
the threat of a lawsuit, but the grand jury went ahead anyway.
Both of the people who are leading the
grand-jury investigation into alleged administration corruption
have gubernatorial ambitions. Attorney General Lisa Madigan
doesn’t want to run for governor next year, but Cook County
State’s Attorney Dick Devine is giving it some thought.
Devine is not a great candidate, but he
wouldn’t admit it if you asked him. He was elected to his
first term, in 1996, almost solely because of the Democrats’
hugely successful “Punch 10” straight-ticket-voting
campaign. Democrats spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the
campaign, which restored the Illinois House to a Democratic
majority and vaulted no-chance candidates such as Devine into the
winner’s circle. To twist an old saying, Devine was born,
politically, on second base but thinks he hit a double.
Devine’s innate political skills alone
aren’t a real threat to Blagojevich, but his grand jury most
certainly is. Far be it from me to ascribe political intentions to
any Cook County prosecutor, but what better motivation could there
be to come up with high-level indictments if a person could use
those potential perp walks to kick off a bright, shiny new
gubernatorial campaign? Devine should be pinned down on his
political intentions: If he plans to run statewide, he probably
shouldn’t be investigating the governor.
If the governor’s folks don’t
sideline Devine, we could be looking at Jim Thompson redux.
Thompson, you may remember, was a federal prosecutor who jailed a
former Democratic governor (Otto Kerner Jr.) and used that to
catapult himself into the governor’s mansion in 1976. Then
again, if Devine loses the November election, we’d have a Dan
Walker/Mike Howlett/Jim Thompson redux. Walker was the incumbent
Democrat who lost the 1972 primary to Mike Howlett, who then lost
the general to Jim Thompson.
History never repeats itself exactly, but
things are starting to look mighty familiar these days.
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here:
The governor may be starting to turn a corner. But what went down
in the first two years of his administration may ultimately undo
whatever cosmetic changes he makes now.
This article appears in Jun 9-15, 2005.
