Illinois governor arrested?Follow

No, it isn't.

No, it says the President-elect and Candidate 1 don't offer anything except their appreciation. You'd be a lot closer to assume that Blagojevich was in contact with Candidate 1 (most probably Valerie Jarrett) seeing as how he was talking to potential appointments for the spot.Supposedly, Obama was keeping as much of a hands-off approach to it as possible. Hell, most people would tell you that Obama's choice for the Senate seat was Jesse Jackson Jr or someone. They'd never heard of Jarrett because Obama wasn't talking her up.Not really but that's for you to prove, not for me to disprove. There's also rumors that it was Rahm Emmanuel who tipped off the feds about this particular aspect (Emmanuel's spokesperson denies it) so maybe the team did know and acted on it.You cite an article saying that Obama and Blagojevich weren't close as proof that he had "ties"?

You'd be better off pointing to Obama's early wotk with the governor or pointing out their mutual endorsement of one another in elections (although intra-party endorsements are expected) than talking about Rezko. Blagojevich was supposedly Politican A in the Rezko trial. Obama's name didn't come up in any significant way at all.

How connected do a Senator and a Governor have to be? Even in the homey little state I live in the federal reps and the state gov. have few dealings with each other beyond photo ops.

Heh http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andy-borowitz/blagojevich-offers-senate_b_149692.html

Obama actually is the one that caused Blago's downfall.

Turns out there was a fundraising ethics bill thing that the Illinois legislature was trying to pass, and Blago veto'd. Obama did a rare thing and strong armed the Illinois legislature into overriding the veto to get it passed, which pissed Blago off tremendously and he started trying to bilk as much money for influence from people as he could before the law took effect. He was already under investigation for corruption from the Rezko trial (yes him, not Obama), and the call from Obama to override the veto for this bill raised enough flags with the Feds that they started recording his conversations.

People say Rahm Emanuel turned him in when he tried to contact the Obama team about trying to get money to put in someone Obama would want. He didn't want to even have a slight appearance of protecting the guy in any way.

Apparently the investigation wasn't ready for arrest yet, but Rahm's evidence coincided with what was already found well enough to move forward with it.

Blag didn't like Obama, and I don't think Obama liked him either, but it isn't surprising if the Democratic Senator from Illinois had contact with the Democratic Governor from Illinois. It would be odd if they didn't, and I think the limit of that contact is pretty good evidence of the differences between them.

Honestly the guy is a moron. He knew he was under investigation already, and kept trying. Its not surprising he got turned in; who in their right mind would want to be associated with this guy?

Edited, Dec 10th 2008 3:03pm by digitalcraft

Heh... Republican Congressperson Mark Kirk was on the radio today saying that Obama's focus for the past year has been getting elected and dealing with the Clintons and anyone who thought he'd been bothering with what Blagojevich was up to hadn't been paying attention.

The national Pubbie pundit response to this has been hilarious. It's obvious that they know nothing about it except "OMG CHICAGO POLITICS!!". Measuring it against the local response on the morning/afternoon AM drive-time shows, it's night & day. The people who actually know local and state politics in Illinois aren't making these cries that Obama must have been involved or that this would implicate the entire state Democratic system, etc.

National voices who think this will result in a GOP resurgance in Illinois are probably going to be very disappointed. Lt. Governor Pat Quinn is well respected throughout the state and has been a constant critic of Blagojevich. The office of Lt. Governor is not filled by the Governor's pick, but rather is ran for independently with its own primary and the winner goes on a joint ticket with the Governor. This means that there's no credible claims that Quinn was part of the Blagojevich machine (in fact, during the budget crisis, I once heard Quinn acidly remark on the radio that he hadn't spoken to Blagojevich in perhaps six months). If he does a decent job as governor and wants it again, he'll enjoy wide bipartisan support and Blagojevich won't be a barb against him. If he doesn't Lisa Madigan will almost certainly take the spot. She's been investigating Blagojevich for years herself and the Illinois voters love her. That's ignoring the entire "Michael Madigan Democrat" wing of the state party which controls the House. In contrast, there hasn't really been a GOP voice of opposition probably due, in part, to the anemic state of the IL GOP.

Side note: Blagojevich's most recent Republican opponent, Judy Bar Topinka, was on the radio saying that (in theory) Pat Quinn could take the governor's mansion on a Blagojevich impeachment/resignation, appoint himself to the still vacant Senate seat thus making Lisa Madigan the new governor since State Attorney General is next in line of progression. That would be hilariously awesome in my eyes but that's 'cause I like those involved.

I know! I mean... can you imagine what would have happened..



Oh wait...

I don't see this causing problems for Obama, unless he continues being pretty stupid about his denials. I'm not sure who was handing out the crack, but apparently, when this broke on Tuesday, he made a public statement saying that neither he nor his staff had spoken to Blago at all about the Senate Seat. While I get that the immediate response is to distance yourself, that was a pretty absurd statement to make given it would be almost unheard of for him not to have at least *some* communication (to suggest a couple names if nothing else).


Of course, the press pretty much immediately found tape of Axelrod stating that Obama and his staff were engaged in conversations with Blago about the empty Senate Seat just a few weeks earlier. Ooops!

Um... But then instead of just correcting that with a press statement that Obama had meant that there were no conversations about selling the seat (which would be a minor hit, but nothing major), he had Axelrod state that *his* earlier press statement on tape was incorrect. Wow. Do they really think that there's no other evidence showing that Obama and/or his staff talked to Blago about this? Talk about potentially turning something you can walk right away from into a freaking minefield for no real reason at all other than not wanting to admit that you knee-jerk reacted to an unfolding scandal.

Barring the absurd possibility that he somehow magically actually didn't have any conversations about this with the governor, he will at some point have to admit that the conversations took place. If he'd done it on day one, it would be washed and gone. The longer he keeps trying to say that they didn't talk at all, the harder it gets. I'm not sure what strategy they think they're playing, but it looks like a losing one.


Honestly, of all the predictable stuff going on, this bit stood out the most. It's almost a textbook example of what *not* to do when a scandal hits someone near you. Um... Don't deny things that aren't really wrong, and then hope no one catches you...

Obama's already watered down his initial "no contact" statement:I agree that the initial "hot potato" reaction was unrealistic. Of course, it's possible that Axelrod was overstating the amount of contact in the recorded bit. I assume the answer is closer to limited contact between staffs rather than Obama sitting down with Blagojevich. In any event, it's obvious that Obama's team had no intent of playing ball.Shit, that ain't nothing. Compared to the Pubbie radio hosts or Freepers, Gbaji's response is pretty rational.

Posting on Free Republic, I imagine