Day Rued

7:54 pm, 11/4/07

Day Rued

The Chicago Tribune's Eric Zorn says Illinoisans don't need, or deserve a recall option.

You had your chance. Blagojevich has been a banquet-sized turkey as a chief executive -- our editorial cited "his reckless financial stewardship, his dictatorial antics (and) his penchant for creating political enemies" as well as the smog of scandal that's hovered over his administration -- but no one can argue that he was stealth turkey.

Blagojevich ran for re-election in a primary and general election last year as a notorious self-basting holiday bird whose record for grandstanding, stubbornness and cronyism in his first term was widely reported.

Democrats could have supported his primary opponent, the smart, decent, independent but woefully underfunded Edwin Eisendrath whom Blagojevich refused to debate. Instead, they rewarded the incumbent with 72 percent of the vote.

In 2002, I voted in the Democratic primary for the express purpose of voting for Paul Vallas. Sometime after that fell through, I left the state entirely. So don't look at me.

The general electorate, then, with eyes presumably wide open, chose Blagojevich last November over Republican Judy Baar Topinka and Green Party gubernatorial candidate Rich Whitney.

You may be disappointed by the pettiness, paralysis, polarization and general gobble-gobble-gobble in Springfield, but, unless you weren't paying attention last year, you can't be surprised. And you can't, in good conscience, ask for a re-do just because Blagojevich is running true to form.

Even if he weren't, you, the voters, have given us no reason to think you'd make a better decision choosing his replacement.

Here are some words of wisdom from a letter copied to me last week:

We do not need to act in anger at politics gone wrong. Instead we need to hold ourselves accountable for the people we elect in the first place.

The author? Edwin Eisendrath.

That's some industrial-sized bitterness right there, but not unfounded. Good people rarely run for state office in Illinois because good people rarely show up to elect them. As I said before, there's really no reason to believe that better candidates will show up in a recall election than they do in the normal ones, unless they intend to break the power of the party machine, which the party machine will never allow. There's nothing wrong, though, that a constitutional convention couldn't fix.

Meanwhile, at the Blagocave:

Gov. Rod Blagojevich's wife received the real estate commission in a $650,000 condominium sale from a businessman who since has won $10 million in no-bid state contracts.

It is the third time the Tribune has disclosed similar commissions earned by the first lady and her home-based real estate business, revealing a steady income to the Blagojevich household from key political supporters, fundraisers and state contractors.

The governor and his wife have declined to personally answer questions or provide a detailed accounting of Patricia Blagojevich's real estate income and clients. In his only comment on the matter to the Tribune, the governor last year called the questions..."sexist."

...but of course.