State Journal Register: In-law Trouble for the Governor

[Tweed]

http://www.sj-r.com/Sections/News/Stories/44626.asp

"CHICAGO - Gov. Rod Blagojevich's father-in-law, a Chicago alderman, took a simmering family feud public Friday, accusing the governor of shutting down a landfill run by a distant relative in a political power play aimed at burnishing his populist image.
Ald. Richard Mell, a Democratic heavyweight credited with helping get his son-in-law elected governor, said Blagojevich was trying to show his political independence and get back at Mell for criticizing him.

"He can't stand to have people thinking it was me who got him elected," Mell said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press from Florida.

"It's purely because of me, because he wants to demonstrate to the world that he is the champion of virtue and that no relative, nobody, can use the governor's office. He is going to be the best possible governor beyond belief," Mell said."

This is such a weird story. Blago's father-in-law, Alderman Mell, is calling out Blago in a sense saying that he helped elect Blago and Blago doesn't want to admit it. This doesn't look too pretty.

[madrchsod]

1. ya dance with the devil

in illinois politics

[terrya]

2. I don't what the implications of this story will be.

Richard Mell, it seems to me, is someone you don't want to clash with. He wields some real clout in Chicago.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

[seventythree]

3. maybe it's a smoke screen

[Tweed]

4. What do you mean by that?

I'm confused. They are hyping this up because there is corruption elsewhere they don't want people to look at?

[seventythree]

5. purposeful rift

Elections are coming and we need the public to think we have distanced ourselves from the machine. I read somewhere that reporters at first felt this was a smoke screen except that Mell was so impassioned that it made them think that maybe it wasn't. I met the man a long, long time ago, just very briefly, and he seemed to me to be capable of a pretty good show. Are we actually to believe that over Christmas dinner -- you even invite your second cousins?-- Rod got, what?, jealous?? that the second cousin was making a buck? I think not, but that's Mell's story. The cousin doesn't even have a big time dumping violation -- some wood and steel, not toxic chemicals -- so how long does it take to correct that? He used to talk to Rod 6 times a day, and now he doesn't? sounds like a smoke screen to me -- a nice pr job to make us think Rod divorced the machine, and all that implies. It's actually kind of an old canard --downstaters do it with Madigan all the time -- downstaters need distance from Chicago. It's why, allegedly, Tribune endorsements can be traded. I am a huge cynic -- too long in the belly of the beast --so consider the source.

[Tweed]

6. Okay, that makes perfect sense

Blago needs to distance himself from the machine and look like his own man. When you put it that way, it makes total sense. Not a bad strategy either.