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A third term for Blagojevich? No shortage of challengers

Posted October 19, 2007 11:00 pm

Bernard Schoenburg

How quaint to look back to the summer of 2005 - as the 2006 statewide election was taking shape - and recall that House Speaker MICHAEL MADIGAN and Senate President EMIL JONES JR. were the campaign co-chairs for the re-election campaign of Gov. ROD BLAGOJEVICH.

Something tells me that wouldn't happen again today.

With important legislative issues such as a statewide construction program and a bailout for Chicago-area mass transit agencies still in the balance in Springfield well into the current fiscal year, and with wounds still open from legislative battles, such a show of unified support for the governor seems a remote dream.

Yes, Madigan and Blagojevich by mid-2005 had gone through some severe battles, particularly as the budget was crafted in the overtime session of 2004. But past conflicts pale when compared with the continuing war of attrition that is the 2007 legislative session.

Madigan, the chairman of the Illinois Democratic Party, hadn't pushed a challenge to Blagojevich as the new governor sought a second term. That left former Chicago Ald. EDWIN EISENDRATH, who took on Blagojevich anyway, to his own devices as he went on to get 29 percent of the primary vote against the incumbent. Madigan knew the history of the party getting behind a challenger to a sitting Democratic governor wasn't good. The last time that happened - when the late Chicago Mayor RICHARD J. DALEY engineered the backing of then-Secretary of State MICHAEL HOWLETT to defeat one-term Democratic Gov. DAN WALKER in 1976 - it worked. But Republican JIM THOMPSON beat Walker in the general election, and Republicans ended up holding the governor's office for 26 years.

Well, the way Blagojevich has tried to end-run the legislature, strongly attacking Madigan even as the governor has generally been allied with Jones, a third Blagojevich term may now seem even a worse scenario for the Democratic Party than the intra-party fight it would take to defeat him in a primary.

Of course, nobody knows if Blagojevich, who now has unsuccessfully sought the largest tax increase in state history in a proposed gross-receipts tax on business, will seek another four years in 2010.

Blagojevich has cranked up his fundraising machine of late, holding a minimum $1,000-per-person event in Chicago last week. Of course, one would think that a politician shouldn't be raising campaign dollars unless they were going to campaign. But if he doesn't run again, Blagojevich would be far from the first Illinois pol to raise cash for general expenses - such as travel to political events, flowers for funerals, and perhaps hundreds of thousands in legal fees that may be linked to investigations from which the governor must defend himself.

There's no shortage of potential Democratic contenders for the job, with speculation that Madigan's daughter, Attorney General LISA MADIGAN, may want to run for governor in 2010. But she and her husband are expecting their second child, so their lives will be plenty full about that time.

Lt. Gov. PAT QUINN, who chose the same day as Blagojevich's fundraiser last week to have a news conference to push finance reforms to end "pay-to-play" politics of the type Blagojevich has often been accused, has run for governor before and, I would argue, is always a possible candidate for that office.

And Comptroller DAN HYNES, who as the state's issuer of checks has tried to nudge lawmakers and the governor to do the things necessary to keep the state operating smoothly, has not been shy about criticizing the governor. Last week, he used a Springfield speech to blast Blagojevich's "hypocrisy" for, among other things, talking about being anti-tax while proposing that giant increase. As I see it, after his less-than-stellar performance running for the nomination for U.S.

Senate in 2004, the third-term comptroller could use his growing state government expertise to build for a higher state office.

CHRIS MOONEY, professor of political studies at the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois at Springfield, adds to the mix the name of first-term Democratic state Treasurer ALEXI GIANNOULIAS, whom he says "appears to be enjoying himself" while building his resume.

So, will the governor run again? Will top Democrats take him on?

"I think everything you used to know is wrong," Mooney said. "That's what we can say after this session. I mean, things have gone so crazy, and there's no end in sight."

"I couldn't tell you what's going to happen next week," he said, let alone in the 2010 election cycle.

Mooney raised the possibility of Lisa Madigan being named to the U.S. Senate if U.S. Sen. BARACK OBAMA, D-Ill., gets named to a post in a presidential administration of HILLARY CLINTON. Obviously, a lot would have to happen for all that to fall into place, but Mooney also isn't sure the attorney general, as someone who was raised around state government, would want to go to Washington.

Mooney thinks the enemies Quinn has built up over the years means his only way into the governor's office would be for Blagojevich to be removed through trouble with the law or impeachment. But he also thinks Quinn has shown himself to be interested in good government.

Whatever the next three years bring, one thing is certain as long as Blagojevich remains governor - it will be hard to predict the next surprise.

A Tull tale

I am so glad that IAN ANDERSON, at 60, is still a great and unique flute player who belts out wonderful tunes made famous by his band, Jethro Tull. That's because I credit his band for helping catapult me into a journalism career, and it's taken me 32 years to finally see the music live because of the concert I missed back in college.

Jethro Tull, you see, played to a packed house at Sangamon Auditorium last week, and I was among the throngs of mostly 40- 50- and 60-somethings who made sure not to miss this opportunity.

Back in the winter of 1975, I was in my third year at the University of Illinois at Champaign, and was in my first year with the campus newspaper, The Daily Illini.

My only regular assignment as a part-time reporter was to cover meetings of the Assembly Hall Advisory Committee, where students had a voice because student fees were paying off construction of the basketball arena.

In my role, I got the phone call from somebody who said that a representative of a fraternity, Zeta Beta Tau, had waited in line and bought a block of tickets to the concert, and extra tickets were being scalped. Enlisting the help of a big-shouldered roommate, KEN LARGIO from Gillespie, to accompany me, I went undercover and, using the newspaper's money, bought two tickets from a ZBT guy who happened to be dating a student who had lived about two blocks from me in my hometown of Evanston.

Another DI reporter who had a lot more experience than I, PAT WINGERT, volunteered to help with follow-up calls and the writing. The lead story in the next day's paper was headlined, "Tull tickets scalped for $20 each." The ticket price was $6.

As I recall, the tickets stayed in a drawer at the DI the night of the concert.

Subsequently, the Assembly Hall adopted a lottery system for ticket sales to avoid such abuses. Wingert and I shared that year's DI investigative reporting award for the story. Wingert went on to work at the Chicago Sun-Times and be an assistant to the great MIKE ROYKO before she started her continuing career with Newsweek. And I came away convinced that journalism was pretty cool. But I lamented not being able to see Jethro Tull - until last week.

Broder's roots

While I've taken you on this nostalgia kick, I'll also note that Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post political correspondent and columnist DAVID BRODER, in his speech in Springfield last week, talked of his Illinois roots.

"I grew up on Abraham Lincoln lore," he told the crowd at a JIM EDGAR lecture series speech at UIS, sponsored by the university and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation, which former Gov. Edgar chairs. "As a boy, I visited New Salem and Springfield with my parents. They regarded both of them as shrines."

A native of Chicago Heights who got bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Chicago, Broder worked for a time, from 1953-55, at The Pantagraph of Bloomington (where I worked from 1976-86).

Edgar passed along an audience question to Broder about his fondest memory of working at the Bloomington newspaper.

"Friday afternoons at Lucca's grill," he said.

"I loved the time there," he said of Bloomington. "Our oldest son was born at (the old) Brokaw Hospital. And we have good friends and good memories from those years. But the time at Lucca's was the best."

The Lucca Grill, run by the late McLean County Democratic Chairman JOHN BALDINI during my time in that town, is still a downtown Bloomington fixture.

Bernard Schoenburg is political columnist for The State Journal-Register. He can be reached at (217) 788-1540 or bernard.schoenburg@sj-r.com.

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