Raoul

It appears my man Kwame Raoul was also approached by Gov. Blagojevich as a possible candidate for Obama's vacant U.S. senate seat. You can read here that Kwame was my first choice for Obama's replacement. I've met Kwame just a couple times, nothing more than casual. He replaced Obama in the state senate and naturally a black man from the south side of Chicago with a funny name should replace Obama in the U.S. senate-- at least that's my thinking. Looks like Blago was thinking the same thing. Except the morally upstanding Blago wanted something tangible in return for appointing Kwame. Thankfully, Kwame wanted nothing to do with it and says it was an open secret that Blago demanded a pay-to-play operation.

This begs the question, if it was such an open secret why didn't more people, including Kwame, report Blago? For starters Blago has been under federal investigation for at least three years. Most would assume the feds already know, which they obviously did. Secondly there are actually people in Chicago and Springfield who see nothing wrong with pay-to-play, it's how it's always been. To them it's second nature. Blagojevich didn't just invent it. Our previous governor is sitting in prison right now for nearly the same thing. And Governor's Edgar and Thompson prior to George Ryan are not innocent in the least bit either. If you didn't pay, you absolutely didn't play with Big Jim Thompson.

What shocks people like Blago more than anything is that this kind of stuff is unethical and illegal. To them it's an everyday occurrence of the way things have always been. Does that mean everyone in Illinois politics is guilty of it? Absolutely not. There are some very good politicians in Illinois, Republican and Democratic. But there is something very wrong with how business can be conducted in Illinois more often than not.

I'm not sure there is any way to end it. Obviously four governors going to prison hasn't ended it. And obviously federal crackdowns have only temporarily disrupted business as usual in Illinois. Aside from doing away with money entirely in Illinois, I don't see it ending.

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Kwame Raoul