A “bumbling boob” who “use(s) immature tactics” are among the nicer comments I have read recently about Illinois’ governor. It’s a good thing for Blagojevich that Illinois has never succumbed to the concept of recall elections, or else a vocal minority would be eager to try to dump him.
Photograph provided by Illinois governor's office
The governor’s latest offense is the way in which state government handled a measure to provide desperately needed financial aid to mass transit programs in Chicago.
The Illinois General Assembly on Thursday went along with changes Blagojevich made to their bailout bill; changes whose sole purpose was to allow the governor to spin the story so that he becomes a hero to Chicago commuters and to senior citizens across Illinois.
Without the additional money provided by a 0.25 percent hike in Chicago-area sales taxes, the Chicago Transit Authority would have had to eliminate about 80 bus lines, reduce its elevated train service and lay off nearly 2,000 CTA workers.
Those cuts would have become a reality next week, had the Legislature not acted by Sunday.
Of course, Rod got a perk – forcing the General Assembly to give in to the governor’s demand that senior citizens now be allowed to ride mass transit systems for free.
From now on, Blagojevich will tout the mass transit bailout and senior citizen freebies as accomplishments of his. He will blame the Legislature for the fact that a plan was not approved until mid-January, even though the problem lingered since last spring.
Anybody who points out that mass transit programs will now have to raise fares overall to replace money lost from senior citizen fares (or that most transit programs already were giving senior citizens discounted rides) is going to be denounced as a cold-hearted trouble-maker who hates elderly people and is biased against the governor.
Now as someone who in the past relied regularly on CTA train and bus services to get from one place to another and who likes the idea that the option is still available in an emergency, I realize some people are totally dependent on mass transit.
I understand just how much service cuts would have devastated the city.
So did a majority of state legislators, which is why they gritted their teeth and voted to give in to Blagojevich’s ego. But that doesn’t mean they’re happy. Some Democrats privately wish there was a way they could remove Rod from office.
That is on top of the anger felt by many Illinois residents, particularly those who live outside the Chicago area whose political partisanship makes them natural enemies of any governor from the Democratic Party.
Sadly for those people, Blagojevich has not done anything that would even come close to warranting impeachment (an over-bloated sense of self-importance is not good enough), and Illinois is among the states rational enough not to have a recall provision in the state Constitution.
If there was one, I have no doubt that a vocal minority of Illinoisans would get the public worked up into a rush to dump Rod.
We’d probably put on a spectacle that would be even more ridiculous than what happened in California in 2003. Voters there got rid of Grey Davis and picked Arnold Schwarzenegger to be their head of state from among 135 candidates who ran in a special recall election.
Think that couldn’t happen here? I could easily picture a rush of clowns doing everything they could to look for loopholes that would allow them to establish Illinois residency and try to gain control of the Illinois governorship.
Maybe Gary Coleman would move to Chicago, claim residency, and run for Illinois governor the same way he tried to become California governor in that state’s recall nearly five years ago.
If you think my suggestion is silly, consider this. It is no more absurd than when Alan Keyes, the conservative pundit and perennial fringe candidate from Maryland, temporarily became a resident of my childhood hometown of Calumet City to try to run for one of our state’s U.S. Senate seats in 2004. Who knows, maybe Keyes will give Illinois another try.
After all, the job does come with salary in the low six figures and a very nice, four-story house in downtown Springfield – even if that is a perk the current governor has never taken advantage of.
For better or worse, a majority of Illinoisans (including myself) voted for Blagojevich in 2002 and 2006. What is the rhetoric always used by social conservatives about accepting responsibilities for your mistakes?
Well, we’re stuck with our majority’s choice for governor for another three years. We will have to put up with Blagojevich’s grandstanding ways at least until early in 2011, and we will get our chance to consider replacing him in the 2010 elections.
The real question is whether Blagojevich will get a free ride and be unchallenged in the Democratic primary that year, or will Democrats go for a political fight and try to dump Rod?
The latter idea is not unheard of in Illinois political history. In 1976, then-Gov. Dan Walker was so unpopular with then-Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley and the regular Democratic organization that they put up a political fight in the primary elections, and they beat him.
Of course, the Democratic nominee, then-Illinois Secretary of State Michael Howlett, wound up as a weakened candidate who was easily beaten by Republican James R. Thompson.
That was the start of what turned out to be a 26-year string of Illinois governors from the GOP, ending only when Blagojevich managed to defeat then-Illinois Attorney General Jim Ryan in 2002.
Fear of repeating history and giving up control of the governor’s post to a Republican is about the only reason that Democrats these days would be inclined to let Blagojevich have a third term in office.
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