Blago's Star Dim for Quite Some Time -- IL Big Cheese Now Stands Alone

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
by Christine Bowman

Around Chicago and throughout the State of Illinois as a whole, it should be noted that our current governor, charged Wednesday with corruption, has not suddenly fallen from grace. Rather, he has been sinking steadily for quite some time. "Friends of Blagojevich" is quite literally just his campaign fund-raising organization.

As Rasmussen reported in mid-October, Rod Blagojevich was the nation's least-approved governor with only a 4% approval rating. And around the same time that the feds were starting to eavesdrop on the governor, his approval as reported by Rick Pearson of The Chicago Tribune was an unlucky 13% (plus or minus the margin of error of 4.4 percentage points)."

As Pearson wrote October 23rd:

The results show the state's first Democratic governor in a quarter-century has lost the confidence of voters in his own party. Moreover, the backing of one of his strongest voting blocs--African-Americans--appears to be falling away.

The ever positive governor's response to his dismal polling? Quoting from AP:

"I love the people of Illinois more today than I did before," he said. "If it's a case of unrequited love at this point, I'll just have to work extra hard to get them to love me again."

We shall not be moved, sir. This is different from when Bill Clinton was facing impeachment but had 65% public approval ratings. US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, on the other hand, would probably find it easy to win elected office in Illinois if he so chose. 

It's true, Illinoisans did reelect Governor Blagojevich two years ago, but that had precious little to do with personal popularity and much to do with his progressive record of supporting issues like choice and expanded health care programs -- and perhaps the fact that he had lots of money to spend on tv advertising.

Downstaters, to their credit, had never much embraced Blagojevich. In part that may have been because voters there resented Blago's decision -- like Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's -- not to live in the state capital but instead to commute at significant taxpayer expense between the state's big city and its capital city. Reporter John O'Connor explored the Blago/Palin travel controversy in detail for AP in September, and he had reported on the Illinois angle in December 2007.

It may be safe to say, now, with the DOJ actively going after yet another Illinois governor, that voters in the Land of Lincoln are more united than ever in the desire to cast aside corruption and seek bipartisan reform. Illinois Favorite Son and "Change" candidate Barack Obama won over plenty of nonpartisan support in Illinois on November 4. Now, it wouldn't surprise us one bit to find non-Republicans flocking to the Illinois GOP's website to sign the online petition posted there that demands Blagojevich's resignation.

The Illinois state legislature has been locked in gridlock for the better part of 2008. Voters had better build a fire under each and every state legislator now to get Blagojevich out and a swift process in that will send a new junior Senator to Washington post haste. The people of Illinois need two Senators. Oh, yeah. And we'd like an honest Governor, too.

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS

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