The decision won't have to be made for almost a year, if at all. But speculation already is rampant in Springfield about who Gov. Rod Blagojevich would appoint to fill Sen. Barack Obama's U.S. Senate seat if Obama leaves it for the presidency (or vice-presidency) in January 2009.

Possibilities include U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. of Chicago, Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White, or state Sen. James Clayborne, D-Belleville, any of whom would maintain Illinois' position as home to the nation's only black senator.

Or he could turn to state Attorney General Lisa Madigan or state Comptroller Dan Hynes, on the premise that these are people Blagojevich wouldn't mind sending to another time zone.

Blagojevich could even appoint himself.

"I'm not sure my imagination is broad enough to encompass all the things that he might do," said Charles Wheeler, director of the Public Affairs Reporting program at the University of Illinois at Springfield. "...He's really not a very predictable fellow."

When Rezko wanted something done, the Blagojevich administration leaped into action to make it happen, Levine marveled in a 2004 telephone conversation secretly recorded by federal agents.

"I have never been in a better position than I am right now," Levine bragged to a contractor he was shaking down for a $1 million kickback. "Part of the reason is because there's never been such tight control of the central apparatus. This guy is making decisions . . . and can get anything done that he wants done."

"Nobody could have done this but me," Levine boasted to a business partner on April 21, 2004, after fixing a vote of a state regulatory panel to approve a controversial Crystal Lake hospital project. The bribe from the contractor, which Levine said he planned to split with Rezko, was contingent on board approval of the planned Mercy Hospital.