The Blagojevich Chronicles – Part 5

Rod Blagojevich has been impeached, and Lt. Governor Pat Quinn has been sworn in as Illinois’s new governor. So everything will be fine now, right? Pat Quinn is man of the people, he’s a good government guy, and he’ll do right thing, right?

Well, sure, except for the fact Pat Quinn went around during the 2006 campaign defending Rod Blagojevich and saying Governor Blagojevich was just trying to do a good job. And Pat Quinn said that at a time when Governor Blagojevich was already under investigation by Patrick Fitzgerald for the same kind of things he is now being charged with. And at a time when there plenty of reports in the media about not just investigations but real things Governor Blagojevich was doing. Did Mr. Quinn think those things I mentioned here were the only two things out there? Or did he just want to get re-elected, so he would say what he had to say to get re-elected – because he was running as part of a team with Rod Blagojevich and the only way he could get re-elected was if Rod Blagojevich got re-elected?

I’m having a little bit of a problem reconciling Mr. Quinn’s alleged good government reputation with this. But let’s see what Mr. Quinn does now. I am sure the PR will be there, but what about the substance? How much is Governor Quinn going to let Mike Madigan raise our taxes? Raise taxes in a recession. There is a plan to not let things get better.

Also, how about those monies set aside each year for legislators to dole out in their districts? Little pork barrels for each state representative and each state senator. What is Mr. Quinn going to do about them? How about the special college scholarships that each legislator can pass out to whomever he or she wants to? Is Mr. Quinn going to try to get rid of those and give the money to the state scholarship commission to help the kids who really need it? Or is he going to just let politics as usual keep on keeping on?

There is not a lot of money involved in these two situations, but there is a symbol. A symbol of change. Are we going to see change? Or is just going be business, and politics, as usual? We will have to wait to see, but if I were a gambler, I know which way I would bet – because it wouldn’t be much of a gamble.