Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich Jesse Jackson, Jr. Jesse Jackson, Sr.
Of course we now know who Rod Blagojevich is, but for thos who need to be bought up to speed here we go again. According to the New York Times:
Rod R. Blagojevich, the governor of Illinois, was arrested on Dec. 9, 2008 on federal corruption charges. Prosecutors said that Mr. Blagojevich had conspired to profit from his authority to appoint a successor to Barack Obama, who resigned his Senate seat after being elected president.
Through a lawyer, Mr. Blagovjevich denied the charges.
Mr. Blagojevich was elected governor of Illinois in 2002 after campaigning as a reformer. He was re-elected in 2006 but soon became embroiled in a federal investigation that initially focused on members of his administration. Icy standoffs with the state Legislature (controlled by his fellow Democrats), combined with the steady stream of revelations from the investigation, drove his approval rating down to 13 percent in a Chicago Tribune poll in mid-2008.
Before winning the governorship, he was a member of Congress representing the North Side of Chicago and was seen as a rising star in the party. When he won the governor’s race in 2002, the Democrats had not been in the governor’s mansion since 1977.
The son of a Serbian steelworker and son-in-law of a powerful Chicago ward boss, Mr. Blagojevich used Chicago as a launching pad to higher political goals. With a populist touch, he ran for governor as a reform candidate promising to clean up the state’s messy politics and to change the mood after the previous governor, George Ryan, a Republican, was sentenced to six and a half years in federal prison for racketeering and fraud.
The federal investigation into influence peddling had led by mid-2008 to the indictment of 13 people, many with close ties to Mr. Blagojevich. But the greatest damage to his political standing came from the trial and conviction of Antoin Rezko, one of his closest supporters. Mr. Rezko was one of Mr. Blagojevich’s top fund-raisers, bringing his campaign more than $1.4 million from 2001 to 2004, according to the federal authorities.
Mr. Blagojevich denied any wrongdoing, but his name surfaced repeatedly in the trial. Witnesses told of conversations with him in which he spoke of or seemed to condone rewarding campaign contributions with jobs.
Joseph Cari, a former national Democratic fund-raiser who pleaded guilty to attempted extortion, testified that Mr. Blagojevich told him of plans to finance his dreams of higher office by rewarding donors with state contracts.
And Stuart Levine, the government’s star witness, who pleaded guilty to money laundering and fraud, said that when he went to Mr. Blagojevich to thank him for a state board appointment, the governor said, “Stick with us and you’ll do very well for yourself.”
In the case that led to his arrest, prosecutors say Mr. Blagojevich discussed gaining “a substantial salary” at a nonprofit foundation or organization connected to labor unions, placing his wife on corporate boards where she might earn as much as $150,000 a year and trying to gain promises of campaign money, or even a cabinet post or ambassadorship, for himself.
According to the statement from prosecutors, Mr. Blagojevich told an adviser last week that he might “get some (money) upfront, maybe” from one of the candidates hoping to replace Mr. Obama. That person was identified only as “Candidate 5.”
In an earlier recorded conversation, prosecutors said, Mr. Blagojevich said he was approached by an associate of “Candidate 5” with an offer of $500,000 in exchange for the Senate seat. Prosecutors later identified Candidate 5 as Representative Jesse L. Jackson Jr. Mr. Jackson denied making any offer to Mr. Blagojevich or authorizing anyone to do so, and said he had been told by prosecutors that he was not the target of an investigation.
Since Obama is now the President-Elect let us examine him next being that he is a U.S. senator from Illinois. Shall we proceed?Barack Hussein Obama II who was born August 4, 1961 is the President-elect of the United States, and the first African-American to be elected President of the United States. Obama was the junior United States Senator from Illinois from 2005 until he resigned on November 16, 2008, following his election to the Presidency. His term of office as the 44th U.S. president will start on January 20, 2009.
A graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, Obama was the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review. Obama worked as a community organizer and practiced as a civil rights attorney before serving three terms in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004. He also taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. Following an unsuccessful bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000, he announced his campaign for the U.S. Senate in January 2003, won the Democratic-party nomination primary in March 2004, and was elected to the Senate in November 2004, defeating Alan Keyes. At the Democratic National Convention in July 2004 Obama delivered the keynote address.
Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996, succeeding State Senator Alice Palmer as Senator from Illinois's 13th District, which then spanned Chicago South Side neighborhoods from Hyde Park-Kenwood south to South Shore and west to Chicago Lawn. Once elected, Obama gained bipartisan support for legislation reforming ethics and health care laws. He sponsored a law increasing tax credits for low-income workers, negotiated welfare reform, and promoted increased subsidies for childcare. In 2001, as co-chairman of the bipartisan Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, Obama supported Republican Governor Ryan's payday loan regulations and predatory mortgage lending regulations aimed at averting home foreclosures.
Obama was reelected to the Illinois Senate in 1998, defeating Republican Yesse Yehudah in the General Election, and reelected again in 2002. In 2000, he lost a Democratic primary run for the U.S. House of Representatives to four-term incumbent Bobby Rush by a margin of two to one.
Americans are riveted by how Governor Blagojevich attempted to shake down would-be Obama replacements for personal gain.
But although the attention on Illinois's murky politics is cause for some embarrassment, it does reveal Obama to be a singularly talented politician: it gives an inkling of how very deftly he must have navigated his way through some shadowy public workings.
Given the state's culture of machine politics, it can be difficult for someone lacking any connections to break into the highest positions in government. But Obama managed it, without even being a Chicago-native. And while he can play the most aggressive brand of hardball politics, the president-elect has always seemed to operate beyond the fray. He has cleverly made use of machine characters, without ever being branded as one.
Survey the people at the top of the Illinois political hierarchy, and the usefulness of a familial connection fast becomes apparent. The mayor, Richard M Daley, is the son of the late Richard J "Old Man" Daley, who ruled Chicago for nearly two decades. Blagojevich is the son-in-law of a powerful local politician. Jesse Jackson Jr is the oldest son of one of the most famous African-American leaders in the US. And two people who are purported to be eager to settle into the governor's mansion – state attorney-general Lisa Madigan and state comptroller Dan Hyne – are respectively the daughter of the speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives and the son of a former Illinois state senate president. Chicago power brokers are often loath to let outsiders in the club. An idealistic young law student interested in campaigning for the state Democratic ticket in the 1950s was rebuffed with this phrase: "We don't want no one no one sent."
Obama overcame this bias against outsiders partly by cultivating powerful patrons. He became a protégé of sorts of state senator Emil Jones, a machine politician who has himself faced questions about the leveraging of influence in the legislature to funnel money and promotions to family members. Jones's support of Obama was crucial in the 2004 senate race that catapulted the young legislator into the national spotlight. In the primary, Obama faced Dan Hynes for the Democratic nomination. Jones's influence with the trade unions allowed Obama to ensure that some of these powerful groups either threw their support behind him or stayed neutral.
The president-elect may have occasionally forged alliances with operators such as Jones, but he has never been tarred for being of their ilk. That is in part the result of his public demeanor. He comes across as cool-headed and cerebral, ill at ease launching verbal attacks against his adversaries. During this year's Democratic primary contest, the American media continually chided Obama for not being more combative in his debates with Hillary Clinton. But behind the scenes, it was a slightly different story: he did not hesitate to throw elbows.
Playing the good cop while embracing aggressive tactics below the radar screen is a strategy Obama seems to be importing to Washington, DC. Just look at his decision to anoint Congressman Rahm "Rahmbo" Emanuel – the most intense, take-no-prisoners politician of his generation – as his chief of staff.
Emanuel made his political debut raising money for Mayor Richard M Daley; he was renowned for making phone calls to businessmen decades his senior berating them for not shelling out sufficiently. He broke fundraising records in that election, a coup that landed him a job with the nascent Clinton presidential campaign.
But even after his candidate was elected to the White House, it has been said that Emanuel didn't forget those who hadn't played ball: he ended a celebratory dinner vowing to exact revenge on politicians who had crossed Bill Clinton. After intoning each name, Emanuel plunged the blade of his steak knife into the table top, declaring "Dead man!" with each thrust.
It is unlikely that the incoming White House chief of staff will so publicly parade his animus in the years ahead. But his crack-the-whip disposition will certainly help muscle bills through Congress. Observers remarked that the Rahm appointment was a signal that the president-elect was intent on moving his agenda forward once installed in the White House.
And indeed, that is a strong Chicago tradition: one reason the Daley dynasty has maintained its lock on power in the city is because both father and son have ensured that government delivered for most voters when they were in charge.
It seems Obama did learn from the city's masters during his years in Chicago: while he eschewed the methods of obscenity-laced phone calls and corruption, he picked up how to win campaigns and muscle through legislative initiatives. He himself pointed to those years in that world during the presidential campaign.
"I'm skinny, but I'm tough," he reassured voters. "I'm from Chicago."
Are all Illinois Politicians are, like all Illinois Lawyers, and that most famous son - Al Capone - criminals? Maybe not, but the apparent culture of corrupt and ill politics in Illinois will more than likely be lurking around most if not all of those who come from this state that will go down in history as the most corrupt in the Union.
Bitter Republicans will more than likely use President-Elect Obama's Illinois background to never let us forget that he too might be corrupt.
Jesse Jackson, Jr. has been sucked into the current Governor of Illinois whether or not he personally or someone he sent or did not send tried to represent him by offering half a million dollars for Obama's now vacant U.S. Senate seat. His career as a politician might just be over.
Sources close to the investigation said Rahm Emanuel, the new chief of staff, had conversations about the issue with Rod Blagojevich and John Harris, the governor's chief aide who is also facing corruption charges.
It is claimed that at one point he even gave them a list of acceptable candidates to take over the vacant seat.
Suspicion has grown that Mr Emanuel is the unnamed "Washington based adviser" mentioned in the 76-page prosecutors' affidavit that Mr Blagojevich ordered his chief of staff to contact.
Mr Obama, who takes office on Jan 20, has vehemently denied any of his staff were involved in deal-making and has promised to reveal any contact between members of his team and the governor's office.
The sources close to the investigation did not say Mr Emanuel had discussed any deals, but even being on receiving end of corrupt demands could be damaging to him and Mr Obama. The sources told Fox News that it was likely the discussions were recorded.
The President-Elect pledged a new brand of politics during his campaign and could be embroiled in the scandal if it turns out any illegal approaches were not swiftly reported to the police.
Any suggestion of wrongdoing could fuel drama and headlines for months as the new administration tries to settle in amid an economic crisis and two wars.
Meanwhile pressure mounted on the governor to resign, after Lisa Madigan, the Illinois attorney general announced she would ask the state's supreme court to declare him unfit to govern in "these extraordinary circumstances".
A leading Democrat yesterday criticised Mr Obama for not being more open about the situation. The president-elect's reaction has stretched out, beginning with a brief denouncement and denial, followed by a call for Mr Blagojevich to resign and then a pledge to reveal all.
Ed Rendell, the Governor of Pennsylvania, said: "The rule of thumb is whatever you did, say it and get it over with and make it a one-day story as opposed to a three-day story.
"Did Rahm Emanuel, who took Rod Blagojevich's seat in Congress, have contact with Rod Blagojevich? Of course he did," Mr Rendell said. "They may have thought he was the craziest S.O.B. in the world. But you still have to have contact with him."
Confronted by a reporter in Chicago, Mr Emanuel gave a testy response, saying: "You are wasting your time. I am not going to say a word about it to you."
It is highly unlikely that no one in the Obama camp knew that Mr Blagojevich was interested – as the secret recordings allege – in trading the senate seat for a well-paid position as the head of a charitable trust.
The November 10 conference call between the governor, his advisers and mystery advisers Washington concerned the possible appointment of "Senate Candidate 1", widely believed to be Valerie Jarrett, a long-time confidante and Chicago businesswoman who was Mr Obama's early choice to replace him. Two days later Mrs Jarrett announced she was taking herself out of the running. ~Last Updated: 9:36PM GMT 12 Dec 2008~
The following is a list of Chicago's politicians:
No comments:
Post a Comment