Political "Pope" now free to be political elder statesman like Rosty, "Fast Eddie"

I kind of wish I had known about the release from prison of one-time political powerbroker William Cellini last week when it happened.

CELLINI: Planning for his future

For it seems that the Springfield resident who for decades has used his fundraising skills and political contacts to benefit political candidates of both major parties (even though he himself was a Republican) is no longer occupying space at the federal correctional center in Terre Haute, Ind.

IN FACT, CELLINI was released from the minimum-security work camp near the maximum-security prison last week on Halloween!

Just think, I could have celebrated the holiday by going as Cellini himself, perhaps wearing an ornate "Pope-like" ring so that other politicos could come and kiss it! Of course, there probably would have been a few confused people who would have wondered why an old fool like myself was going disguised as an even older person whom they probably never paid much attention to during his decades of service in and around government.

Cellini is now doing the halfway house portion of federal rehabilitation, where he theoretically will spend this month at a Salvation Army facility on the West Side – getting himself acclimated to life in proper society.

His 366-day prison sentence that he began serving in January won’t technically end until Dec. 5 – yes, Bill behaved himself in prison and qualified for 47 days off his sentence for good behavior.

FOR THE RECORD, the actions that finally got Cellini put away following a career being associated with government that dates back to the early 1970s involved now-incarcerated former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

VRDOLYAK: Cellini's urban counterpart?

Cellini used his contacts to raise money for the Blagojevich campaign (much of which wound up paying for the legal defense during his two trials), and it was claimed during Cellini’s trial that he approached an investment firm to solicit money with promises that the firm would get to handle state teacher pension funds.

Personally, I think the Blagojevich ties are a miniscule part of the Cellini career – which has mostly consisted of being the guy to whom the government officials turn when they want something done.

After all, he hasn’t held any electoral posts anywhere outside of Springfield – and those were in municipal government back in the 1960s. Within state government, he is a former director of Public Works and Buildings and served two years as the first-ever head of the Illinois Department of Transportation.

ROSTENKOWSKI: Elder statesman?

BUT THE ELECTION of Dan Walker (insert bad joke about Walker’s eventual criminal conviction here) in 1972 as governor brought that to an end.

Although he served as the treasurer of the Sangamon County Republican Party, he really became the corporate type who made himself some money while also indulging himself in politics as a hobby of sorts.

Which means what Cellini really became was the guy who worked with decades worth of government officials, seeing the way things worked. Some argue exposure to all that power throughout the years made him cross the line to criminal behavior.

To me, it makes me wonder if Cellini really ought to be compared to one-time House Ways and Means Chair Dan Rostenkowski, D-Ill., and former 10^th Ward Alderman and Cook County Democratic Chairman (who converted himself to Republicanism later in life) Ed Vrdolyak.

ROSTENKOWSKI LITERALLY SPENT the rest of his life after completing his prison time in the 1990s being the elder statesman of the Chicago “Machine.”

How many times did we see him pop up on an Election Day until his death in 2010 for instant analysis of what the voter tallies really meant? Or use his positions as a Northwestern University lecturer and Loyola University senior fellow to influence the way future generations of people perceived politics? Is Cellini destined for similar use at the University of Illinois' Springfield campus?

Vrdolyak these days crops up occasionally in a similar role. Is this the ultimate fate for Cellini? Are Vrdolyak/Cellini destined to become the colorfully-tainted political pundits from Chicago/downstate?

We’ll be waiting to see the outcome.

  -30-

Electoral politics brings out the tackiest of gallows humor in some people

The next week is going to provide certain people amongst us with a field day for their sick, twisted jokes about our political state.

RYAN: Soon to be free (sort of)

You know who you are. The ones who can’t resist a chance to take a pot shot at former Gov. George Ryan and anyone else whose name they can manage to tie into his.

HOW MANY PEOPLE have derived a gag (and an attempted laugh) at the thought of Ryan and our other convicted former Governor, Rod Blagojevich, being cellmates or being assigned to some miserly duty in the prison yard?

That never happened – what with Ryan doing his time at the minimum-security work camp connected to the maximum-security federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind., and Blagojevich winding up at that facility out in Colorado!

But it was this week that former political powerbroker William Cellini finally surrendered himself to federal officials, where he was then sent to the very same minimum-security facility where Ryan is being held.

For the time being.

YOU PEOPLE CAN have your jokes about how the mighty-and-powerful have fallen and are now sharing space in the same federal facility.

Perhaps it is a sign of how far the Republican Party has fallen, since back in the days when they were significant and Mighty! and capable of actually getting things done, it was with people like Ryan in charge, with people like Cellini using his business acumen to raise the money that those candidates used to pay for their campaigns.

CELLINI: Soon to be prison power-broker?

Which then made them indebted to Cellini – which was the source of his power. He had the ability to tell people with power how they should use it.

Now, they two of them are a punch line, rotting away at a Bureau of Prisons facility in a southwestern Indiana community where “God” is spelled “L-A-R-R-Y B-I-R-D.”

HE DID, AFTER all, play his college ball at nearby Indiana State University.

But back to Ryan and Cellini – who aren’t going to be prison-mates for long. For Ryan is on the verge of leaving the facility where he has spent nearly six of what should have been his “Golden” years.

Ryan’s prison term is scheduled to end July 4. But in accordance with standard prison policy, inmates can be released to a half-way house a few months early as part of an effort to re-acclimate those individuals to the outside world – which has changed quite a bit since Ryan went away.

And the Chicago Sun-Times reported recently that Ryan’s date for release – possibly to a facility on the West Side – is one week from Wednesday.

ALREADY, I HAVE been reading the gripes from those individuals who are determined to believe that any sort of release for Ryan is a political favor of sorts.

As though the only way those individuals will be pleased is if they learn of a report that Ryan was killed during a prison riot. Then again, they’ll probably gripe that it wasn’t violent enough.

If it sounds like I hold a lot of Ryan’s critics in contempt, you’d be accurate.

It just seems like certain people are determined to let their venom flow to extraordinary levels when it comes to our former governor from the Kankakee area. Which kind of saddens me.

THAT IS A lot of hatred they have built up, and it likely is preventing them from getting on with their own lives and achieving something of significance.

And while I’ll admit that even all these years later, a part of me is skeptical about the nature of the charges for which Ryan was convicted, I accept that a jury reached its verdict that has been upheld by various appeals courts.

Ryan did his time. Just as Cellini is about to do his (he owes the federal government about one year, and should be free by 2014). Those of us who feel compelled to spew disgust about this situation ought to look more intensely at ourselves.

For while I’m the first person to admit I can appreciate the humor of a tacky situation, the overkill we’re going to hear in coming weeks and months is something that will leave me in dismay.

  -30-

Cellini shares legacy with "Fast Eddie"

When I learned earlier this week that long-time political powerbroker William Cellini got a one-year prison term for his corruption conviction, my gut reaction was to think back to Edward R. Vrdolyak.

CELLINI: Following Ed's lead?



“Fast Eddie,” as a certain generation will always remember him. The outspoken alderman of the 10^th Ward who became the namesake leader of the opposition faction of the City Council to then-Mayor Harold Washington.

EVEN AFTER HE left the council (which he has told reporter-types, “feels like an entire lifetime ago”), he remained active as a political consultant-of sorts.

He was the guy who got called on when somebody wanted to make a deal, and wanted Vrdolyak’s life-time collection of “friends” to help out.

Which ultimately got him a mail fraud conviction. Federal prosecutors say he cooperated with a real estate developer to arrange the sale of a Gold Coast neighborhood building without having to deal with bids. Supposedly, Vrdolyak was to receive a share of the $1.5 million sales price as his “fee,” but which prosecutors say was more bribe-like.

Vrdolyak, as we remember, tried to get probation, and initially got a judge to go along. But eventually, that sentence was thrown out and Eddie of the East Side would up getting a 10-month prison term, along with a few months of community service.

ALL OF WHICH has been served by now.

Vrdolyak managed to avoid the prison term of four to five years that federal prosecutors wanted him to receive, largely because of his age (he was 71 at the time).

All of which sounds so much like what will happen to Cellini – who in January is supposed to report to Bureau of Prisons authorities to begin his 1-year prison term (which could be reduced to a little more than 10 months if he qualifies for all his “good time”).

VRDOLYAK: Cellni similarities?



U.S. District Judge James Zagel ignored Cellini’s pleas for probation – even though his health isn’t solid and he’s even older (78) than Vrdolyak.

SO IT WILL be off to a prison camp for Cellini – the Springfield business executive who throughout the years helped raise campaign cash for political people of both parties. Which is why they felt themselves indebted to him, and gave him influence over public policy.

Cellini was one of those people who chose to build wealth for himself, rather than have a nice proper title to tag onto his name.

Which is how he got involved in a deal where a Hollywood producer claimed that Cellini’s tactics in trying to get the man to donate money to then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich amounted to extortion.

Prosecutors, and ultimately a federal jury, agreed.

THE TWO MEN just seem so identical, even with regard to their partisanship. For Cellini was nominally a Republican, but one more than willing to do business with Democrats.

While Vrdolyak was the one-time head of the Cook County Democratic Party who converted to Republicanism (although the GOP always seemed uncomfortable having him amongst their ranks).

There’s also the matter of incarceration.

For Vrdolyak did his prison time at the minimum-security work camp that is part of the maximum-security prison at Terre Haute, Ind.

THAT’S THE SAME facility where George Ryan has served his time. The two men got to know each other during their prison stints.

RYAN: A political trio?

At Cellini’s advanced age (which was the reason used by Bureau of Prisons officials to send Ryan to Terre Haute rather than the usual Oxford, Wis., facility where corruption cases are sent), he could also wind up just across the state line in Indiana.

Considering that Ryan isn’t supposed to leave the facility for a work-release program back in Illinois until some time in February, the two could wind up having some contact. Could there wind up being a “final favor” being called in between the two – payback for some past political contribution?

When it comes to the world of government corruption, nothing should be too much of a surprise.

  -30-

No legal surprises from Zagel. Is that what Cellini, Blagojevich counting on?

U.S. District Judge James Zagel issued two rulings in recent days that favored prosecutors in government corruption cases involving William Cellini and Rod Blagojevich.

ZAGEL: No legal surprises?

Yet somehow, I don’t think either politically high-powered defendant is all that surprised, or upset, at the unfavorable rulings to their motions.

BOTH MEN WERE trying to get Zagel to rule on motions that would have benefitted them – and “da judge” refused.

In the case of Cellini, the fundraiser who tells politicians what they should do with their positions of authority, his attorneys wanted a ruling that would have struck down his “guilty” verdicts on the grounds that one of the jurors was tainted.

The “taint” coming from the fact that the juror didn’t admit upfront that she had a prior criminal record.

Whereas Blagojevich was once again trying to get excepts from the tape recordings made by the G-man wiretaps – ones that prosecutors didn’t use in their trial against the former governor but that he claims would put him in a favorable light.

ZAGEL WASN’T “BUYING it” in either case.

For Cellini, he ruled that defense attorneys are going to have to prove that the so-called tainted juror had some bias against their client. The fact that not all information came out prior to trial isn’t enough to warrant tossing out a criminal verdict.

For Blagojevich, Zagel said that defense attorneys should have tried to bring this issue up a long time ago – rather than thinking it could be used to ambush a sentencing hearing. One could argue that Blagojevich HAS been trying to get these tapes in the public realm for so long, and that Zagel has been the one who has stood in the way.

So now, we have sentencing hearings coming up – ones in which both men are looking at the possibility of a decade or more of prison time as their punishment for their improper acts that cheated the public out of the service they should have a right to expect from their government officials.

WHICH IS A statement that lays it on a little thick. But then again, that is the way many prosecutors (particularly at the federal level) tend to think. We may well get some variation of that line when it comes time to sentence the two men.

I don’t believe either man expected Zagel to rule in their favor. In fact, I think it would have screwed up their long-term strategy if the judge HAD given them what they were asking for.

What I suspect all of this was about was getting the judge to rule negatively, so that the attorneys can argue on appeal that THIS is the critical error made by Zagel – and one that would warrant having their convictions tossed out and new trials being held.

Albeit under conditions where prosecutors were restrained in ways that they were not during their most recent trials.

THE LEGAL ARGUMENTS made for Cellini against the juror and for Blagojevich in favor of the tapes are more intended for that eventual appeals court panel that will hear these cases sometime during the next couple of years.

I’m sure the attorneys for both men are envisioning the day when a legal panel will issue a ruling (perhaps 2-1) that is more to their liking, and one that would allow both of these men to go through the rest of their lives contending that they were the “victims” of an overbearing prosecution in these legal matters.

Then again, it’s always possible that the 2-1 vote will go against them, with the “1” being the lone judge who thinks their argument has any credibility.

That is, after all, what became of the appeals filed on behalf of former Gov. George Ryan. At every level of the appeals process, there were judges who thought there was merit to the arguments he made in his own defense.

UNFORTUNATELY FOR HIM, Ryan could never get a majority – which is why he looks at the possibility of another 20 months  at the work camp located near the maximum-security Terre Haute Correctional Center in Indiana.

And the real issue at stake these days with regards to either of these government corruption cases is whether the arguments being made now to a judge who most likely just wants to put an end to these legal proceedings will be viewed more favorably by fresh ears in the future?

  -30-

Juror uncertainty always scares me

It is the part of our society’s judicial system that always scares me – the idea that a person’s fate can literally wind up in that mythical “jury of our peers.”

For who is to say who our peers are? Particularly since it seems that the people from whom juries can be picked often can’t even agree on certain standards.

THAT IS THE truth, as evidenced most recently by the panel of his peers that found William Cellini guilty of two (out of four) criminal charges he faced for his behavior related to his activity as the person who told the politicians what they should do with their elected offices.

The Chicago Tribune came up first with the disclosure that one of the Cellini jurors was less than honest during the screening process – covering up the fact that she had a drug-related conviction and an aggravated driving under the influence conviction.

Cellini’s attorneys are trying to get us to believe that this cover-up is so heinous that it warrants throwing out his two “guilty” verdicts. That would have the end result of requiring federal prosecutors to pay the expense of doing an entirely new trial – unless they want to suddenly decide that Cellini should be able to walk free and un-convicted of anything criminal.

They’re not about to do that.

SO IT MEANS we’re going to get some sort of high-minded rhetoric about how we need to screen people more thoroughly when they are up for consideration for a jury.

Yet I’m not sure there are any rules that could be implemented that could ever change the basic fact that some people have differing ideas about what they think should be disclosed.

I’m willing to give the female juror in the Cellini case the benefit of the doubt that she seriously thought the specifics of her particular offenses somehow didn’t qualify. Some people probably think that only other people’s problems are worthy, and not their own.

Just like it always amuses me when prosecutors and defense attorneys ask prospective jurors if they can be “impartial” and can keep in mind that people are “presumed innocent until otherwise proven guilty.”

ON THE CASES where I have seen jurors being picked (as a reporter-type person), everybody always says, “Yes.”

Yet I have seen enough “regular people” in our society who seriously believe either that being partial is a benefit and/or that people wouldn’t be suspect unless they had done something wrong.

There’s just no way I can believe that none of those people ever get into juror pools. Have there been cases where would-be jurors were less than honest and said “Yes” because they wanted to be picked?

Which gets me back to the woman who was less-than-honest about her own criminal background. Because it reminded me of the one time I got called for jury duty and made it to the point of being in a pool for a trial at the Criminal Courts building.

FOR THE RECORD, I wasn’t picked. But not before I was asked the questions about my own “criminal” background.

Because I had the opposite reaction. I ran through the details of every single encounter I had had with the courts, and I’m sure I came off as some sort of would-be criminal mastermind.

I got rejected. Even though I have never been charged with a felony, and my “record” is a couple of misdemeanors for which I was punished with fines – the most recent of which was 15 years ago. And the offenses were considered minor enough that judges in the respective counties ruled that I would have them automatically expunged after a certain amount of years had passed.

To my knowledge, I don’t have a “record” that should show up under any perfunctory search.

YET I DIDN’T want to incur any potential wrath of the legal system, which is why I “disclosed” all. Even though I can still recall the look on the face of one of the prosecutors who rejected me almost immediately. Perhaps he thought I’d be too sympathetic to the defendant (it was an attempted murder case where the victim suffered an injury so severe that it left him permanently disabled).

But it seems not everybody thinks that way, although I think the idea that someone would cover up a criminal record in order to get ONTO a jury – particularly a federal jury – is just absurd.

I remember feeling relieved when I was rejected for a jury, and have always wondered how many of my jury pool members – none of whom I have seen since – thought differently than I did.

It is why a part of me has always joked that if I ever were on trial, I’d pick a bench trial. Let a judge decide. Although the best solution to avoiding the fact that different people interpret jury service differently might well be to avoid doing anything stupid that gets me before the attention of the court system to begin with.

  -30-

Cellini guilty? Not a shock

My gut reaction to learning of the fact that Bill Cellini now has a criminal conviction on his record? Yawn.

The Capitol won't be the same without Cellini



The way the court process works, particularly at the federal level, there may be a presumption of innocence but it is designed to give prosecutors every chance in the world to overcome that presumption.

WHICH MEANS THE real “news” would have been made if Cellini had somehow managed to get an acquittal on all the charges he faced. In fact, I’m inclined to think that attorney Dan Webb isn’t full of it in pointing out the fact that the two most serious charges were the ones that the jury found Cellini “not guilty” of.

But all it takes is a “guilty” verdict on at least one charge, regardless of the charge, for Cellini to become as “guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty” as one-time Attorney General John Mitchell (with apologies to Garry Trudeau).

And Cellini got two – the jury on Tuesday found him guilty of conspiracy to commit extortion and aiding and abetting the solicitation of a bribe.

If it comes across that I’m not all that convinced that Cellini’s behavior rose to the standard that would define it as criminal, you’d be observant. Then again, it doesn’t matter what I think.

HIS FATE WAS decided by the dozen individuals who sat on his jury and spent the past month hearing details from testimony in the U.S. District courtroom of Judge John Zagel, along with three days deliberating among themselves.

Whether they overcame their early confusion about the case, or merely gave into it, the end result is that Cellini isn’t going to be the powerbroker who tells the state government types what they should do – on account of the fact that he helped to raise the money that so many of them used to pay for their electoral campaigns.

He got to walk out of the Dirksen Building on Tuesday knowing that he’s going to have to do some time in a federal correctional center, and that some people will give a knee-jerk partisan political reaction if the eventual number handed down by a judge isn’t sufficiently long-enough for them.

And it also means the reason for delaying the eventual sentencing of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich is now gone. Prosecutors can proceed with getting him a prison term; knowing that some people will get all worked up if the end result isn’t a sentence somewhere close to those 300 years that some legal experts say is possible.

PERSONALLY, THERE IS one aspect to this trial being over that makes me happy. It brings to an end all of the criminal prosecution that arose from the mid-2000s effort by the U.S. attorney’s office to “get” the governor.

Whether or not there was hard-core criminal activity taking place there, the fact is that the people who are determined to let their ideological leanings run amok have had a field day with all of this activity.

The people who were upset that a Republican string of governors (Thompson to Edgar to Ryan) was broken and that we never got the concept of “Gov. Jim Ryan” were the ones who got particular glee from all of this.

Now that U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald was able on Tuesday to hobble on crutches while boasting how gratifying it was to protect the public from great danger by putting away Bill Cellini, perhaps his office can go back to finding real criminals.

THE “VERY, VERY loud message” that Fitzgerald talked of always struck me as a lot of bombast from the political partisans.

Those of us who view things more rationally merely got a headache. We’re glad that perhaps we can now move forward with our state government, rather than continuing to dwell in the past.

  -30-

Do they want the Cliff’s Notes version?

The jury of William Cellini’s “peers” (as though any group of a dozen people could truly be considered the peers of a man who tells politicians what to do) already has shown something interesting about their comprehension of the evidence they have heard for the past few weeks.

Do we need a Cellini edition?

It’s probably not that intense.

I WRITE THAT after learning that the first day of deliberations on Wednesday has become stalled on account of the questions the jury sent to the judge and attorneys.

They want to know if they can have access to the power-point presentation they saw during the trial’s testimony. That was a tool used by the attorneys to more visually summarize the actual evidence that jurors were presented with.

But it is not evidence, in and of itself. The actual evidence, including those recordings of government wiretaps that were heard during the trial, is all in the hands of the jury.

They have the raw materials in their hands. They can go through it as much as they want to try to come to an understanding of what really happened concerning Cellini – who faces criminal charges in U.S. District Court for allegedly crossing over the line between legal and illegal in getting an aspiring movie producer to make a sizable donation to Rod Blagojevich’s gubernatorial campaign fund.

BUT PERHAPS THAT is too confusing. Or maybe that takes too much time. So they want the summary, which was meant to highlight certain points that attorneys wanted to punctuate with force.

In short, it is the legal spin – not the fact, in and of itself.



The confused-looking people standing outside the Dirksen Federal Building with a cigarette may well be the Bill Cellini jury.



Which is why I was pleased to learn that U.S. District Judge James Zagel didn’t just give in and hand it over.

In fact, jurors wound up getting to go home early for the day on Wednesday because prosecutors and defense attorneys can’t agree on what they should be allowed to see.

SO EVEN WHEN jurors come back on Thursday to continue deliberations, there is going to be an initial time period in which they will do nothing. They will have to wait for the answer that will be crafted by attorneys – and whose legalese likely will be seen as pointless by at least a few of those jurors.

Who will probably rant and rage among themselves about why “those damned attorneys” can’t just give them a straight and simple answer.

When it comes to the courts, nothing is ever simple.

Actually, this moment reminded me of one that occurred just over a decade ago in U.S. District Court for central Illinois. It was the trial of Management Services of Illinois executives, who ultimately were found guilty of using their ties to government officials to benefit themselves financially beyond what could be construed as good government services.

THAT JURY ALSO asked at one point for special booklets that defense attorneys had prepared for them to use during the testimony to help explain some of the technical jargon used by state government officials in the Public Aid Department.

That judge refused to give the booklets on the grounds that they had the actual evidence, which means they had everything they needed to reach a decision.

Somehow, I think a similar answer in this case will frustrate the jurors, who may well feel like they’re swamped in government and campaign minutia

Which is never an encouraging situation to be in. One day into deliberations, and the jury already seems confused. Let’s only hope that they recover, or else this could become a long, drawn-out process.

PERHAPS ONE THAT lasts as long as the testimony itself – which in my mind breezed through so quickly (particularly when compared to the couple of months that the initial trial of Blagojevich himself lasted).

Got to keep those jurors content, particularly in a case with such significance to the way our state government operates (at least when they’re not engaged in political hissy fits against Gov. Pat Quinn by overriding his veto on the Commonwealth Edison “smart grid” bill).

That may well be the reason that Zagel was sympathetic to another “question” put forth by the jurors on Wednesday.

Apparently, there are some smokers among the jurors. Their question was to ask whether they could take a break for a cigarette. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that about five of the jurors were seen being escorted outside the Dirksen Federal Building so they could light up without violating laws against smoking indoors.

  -30-

Will Cellini trial get the short shrift?

Federal officials began the process Monday of picking a jury for the trial of Springfield business executive William Cellini, yet I wonder how many people have any sense of whom he is.

CELLINI: Boss behind the bosses?



Because thus far, his trial is turning out to be the circumstance that is causing other trials to be delayed.

FIRST, THAT OF former Gov. Rod Blagojevich. And now, Tony Rezko. U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve on Monday delayed the sentencing of the man who was supposed to be capable of taking down the political careers of  Blagojevich, Rahm Emanuel and Barack Obama.

So we’ll have to wait until November to find out what eventually will happen to Rezko – who in the end didn’t have much of an effect on Rahm and Barack. And Milorod seems to have gone down to legal defeat without any input from Antoin.

All of these political people are the “big names” who are overshadowing Cellini. I’m sure there are many people who are observing this whole situation and thinking that Cellini is some sort of afterthought.

Which is a mistake!

WHENEVER PEOPLE ASK me who Bill Cellini is, or why is he significant, I always use the overly-simplistic explanation of telling them that Cellini is the guy who has the ability to tell the elected officials what it is they will do with their political positions.

Because on paper, he doesn’t come across as much. He used to hold positions in state government (the first director ever of the Illinois Department of Transportation) back in the days with Richard Ogilvie was Illinois governor.

OGILVIE: Gave Celllini his only post



In recent years, he has been the treasurer of the Sangamon County Republican Party. Which means he’s not in charge of the GOP in Springfield and its surrounding rural towns.

But he’s the guy who controls the money and has the institutional memory. As a result, he’s the guy that the party chairmen usually turn to when they need “advice” about what to do.

AND BECAUSE HE’S a prominent Republican in the Illinois capital city, the state legislators and other officials turn to him. Even the Democrats. Because Cellini isn’t somebody who feels the need to play ideological politics – which is why the biggest Cellini critics these days (the ones most eager to see him carted off to prison) are the ideologues.

The ones who scream “RINO” and complain that Cellini isn’t a real Republican because he’s willing to work with Democrats in state government when they manage to get themselves elected to political positions. Because they don’t want to accept the idea that people of the two major political parties (along with those of other ideological persuasions) really do have to work together if we’re to accomplish anything as a society.

This is the guy who wound up helping Rod Blagojevich to raise the money he needed in order to beat Jim Ryan in 2002 and annihilate Judy Baar Topinka in 2006. That Cellini-raised money was the reason she could never truly rebut all the nonsense rhetoric Blagojevich spewed during that campaign.

As for Jim, perhaps the reason Cellini was willing to back Blagojevich was because the Ryan campaign of ’02 was based too strongly on the concept of “It’s my turn,” rather than offering any vision for Illinois.

IT ALSO RELATES to the actions that federal prosecutors say amount to criminal behavior. For the trial that likely will take up the bulk of the month of October says that Cellini’s behavior in getting contributions from a would-be Hollywood producer amount to extortion. The old shake-down.

BLAGOJEVICH: Cellini-raised cash

Of course, there are those who are skeptical of these charges, saying that they are closely related to actions for which other people were already acquitted. Hence, there are some who think Cellini could be the lone individual in this latest federal investigation of state government corruption who could be found “not guilty.”

And I’m sure if that happens, there will be those people who will argue that it was Cellini’s cunning and cleverness that somehow managed to allow him to elude a criminal conviction.

Or maybe it just means that his behavior was business, and not criminal. And that the only thing he might be “guilty” of is associating with sordid individuals.

  -30-

CAM-PAINS: Corrupt Dem politico replaced this week by bipartisan politico

Tuesday of this week was supposed to be the point in which Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama took one final “hit” from Antoin Rezko.

Rezko is the one-time fundraiser who federal prosecutors say improperly used his contacts with political officials, and a jury agreed. Until he started cooperating with federal officials (creating the possibility he may testify against other officials, including Gov. Rod Blagojevich), he was scheduled to be sentenced this week.

TUESDAY, TO BE exact. Or, exactly one week before Election Day, which would mean the nation would get a fresh dose of being reminded about how Rezko helped Obama get a slightly larger plot of land as part of his Hyde Park neighborhood home.

Now to the dismay of Obama critics, the presidential candidate’s activity never became a focus in Rezko’s trial during the summer months in U.S. District Court. The Illinois governor’s name came up much more prominently, and he’s the one who has to worry about his reputation being tainted with Rezko muck.

Which is why I find it ironic that we DID get some activity from federal prosecutors this week that related to government corruption. Only instead of being a Rezko prison term, it was an indictment for Bill Cellini.

I know, I know. Those of you with real lives who don’t pay attention to government minutia are saying, “Who’s he?” Cellini is quite possibly the most important person whom the general public knows nothing about.

AND THAT WAS always deliberate on the part of the Springfield businessman whose political connections go back four decades. That’s just it. The man who supposedly is involved in government corruption was not an elected official.

If anything, Cellini was the guy whose influence was so strong that he could get political people to do what he wanted, even if it went against their best interests. That’s true clout. Rezko was a guy who got political attention because of his fund-raising abilities.

I’m curious to see how much a Cellini corruption trial taints political reputations. Of course, the people who were most willing to try to use Rezko for partisan purposes will tone down their rhetoric – after all, Cellini was a Republican, even though he was bipartisan enough to be able to work with Blagojevich. Both parties will be hurt by a Cellini trial, even if he’s ultimately acquitted.

So what other observations are possible as we move into the final weekend prior to Election Day?

CAPACITY CROWDS?: All the e-mail interest tied to getting tickets to Grant Park for Election Night (so they could say they were with Barack when he learned whether or not he became president) brought out one fact.

Only about 65,000 people (including 5 who will be chosen randomly in an e-mail lottery, as though an Obama appearance is a game show prize) are going to be able to fit into the official area where the rally will be held. Yet Chicago city officials continue to insist that as many as 1 million people (such an even, and impressive, number) will be on hand.

Municipal officials have even gone so far as to let downtown businesses know it would do the city a big favor if they would let people out of work early on Tuesday – a fact that the Chicago Tribune notes has many business officials upset.

How much of a mess will Chicago be come Tuesday and early Wednesday if hundreds of thousands of people cram their way into downtown without tickets? Probably no more than the mayhem that occurs every year on July 3 when the city has its official Independence Day fireworks display. If the city can handle those crowds, they can probably cope with the Obamamania display that will take place next week.

WE DON’T CARE: There is a place where people have little opinion between Obama and Republican John McCain – mainland China.

The Gallup Organization came out with a survey earlier this week that showed 12 percent of Chinese people who were questioned prefer Obama, compared to 5 percent for McCain. The rest of them “don’t know.”

Their poll found that in China’s three largest cities (Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou), Obama supporters outnumber McCain backers by a 3-1 ratio. But nearly half of those people (46 percent) don’t care.

So what does it say about all the campaign rhetoric implying that Obama is a socialist (if not an outright Communist) that in the land where being a socialist is a positive that a majority of the public could care less about our Election Day?

NO WONDER HE KEPT HIS MOUTH SHUT: Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., the one-time Clinton administration aide who was put in a tight political spot when both Hillary R. Clinton and Obama ran competitively against each other in the Democratic primary this year, seems to be getting his reward for not taking sides.

Emanuel became the butt of political jokes about his absolute refusal to come out in favor either of Hillary or Barack until after the primary ended. But now, various reports indicate Emanuel is a favorite to become White House chief of staff, should this country manage to get a “President Obama” in Tuesday’s elections.

So the one-time “Rahm-bo” who is credited with orchestrating the effort two years ago that shifted control of Congress to Democrats could wind up being the politico who does the dirty work of running the federal government in ways that make the grand pronouncements of a President Obama come true.

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