This Jason Zengerle post is good, as far as it goes, in explaining why Rod Blagojevich was once considered a viable presidential candidate. But I think he's missing the fact that, even if there had never been any hint of corruption, the man still would be hated by pretty much everyone in the state who interacts with him on regular basis. Virtually from day one, he has been openly at war with the state legislature and and has failed repeatedly to come to an agreement with them on the budget, school funding reform, or any number of other issues. Consider this daunting list of reasons Blagojevich boasted a 4 percent approval rating, from a Chicago Magazine profile written before he was arrested:
Nearly everyone I spoke to agrees that Blagojevich is facing a career-threatening political crisis. Still, no consensus explanation emerges for his spectacular fall from grace, though several reasons were mentioned over and over. They are, in no particular order:
It's the corruption, stupid! Despite Blagojevich's repeated promises to "change business as usual" in Springfield -- meaning, rid state government of pay-to-play politics -- he has shown an inability or unwillingness to do so. On top of that, his own administration has been marred by alleged illegal hiring and political kickback scandals.
* His guns-blazing, iron-fisted style with state legislators has resulted in all-out war and, consequently, political gridlock. Blagojevich doesn't want to make deals; he wants a dogfight.
* He picked bad enemies and possibly even worse friends.
* He has never shifted his mindset from campaign mode to the reality of governing—favoring grandstanding photo ops and public-relations blitzes to the serious policy duties of the office.
* He has failed to right the state's fiscal ship, in large part because of his dogmatic refusal to raise income or sales taxes.
* The credibility factor: Lawmakers and voters don't trust Blagojevich—he has broken or reneged on too many promises.
* The buck doesn't stop with Rod. He never accepts blame for his—or his administration's—mistakes.
* How rude! Even some of the governor's friends gripe about his chronic tardiness, his absenteeism in Springfield, and his enduring aversion to returning phone calls.
Blagojevich's main accomplishment, the childrens' health program All Kids (which he proposed paying for in part by selling off the state lottery and borrowing from state pension funds), was impressive, but besides that he's focused on attention-getting bits of flim-flammery, like his attempt to regulate violent video games. He wasn't, on the other hand, interested in actually governing the state, passing budgets, or improving basic functions of government.
He also sounds like a simply impossible person to deal with. He's arrogant, demanding, totally uninterested in what other people think or want -- not, generally, good attributes for a politician. No wonder his feuds with state Democrats got so poisonous that they had to be moderated by Republican leaders:
The governor's strange behavior has been fertile ground for localarmchair psychologists. Last summer, the downstate newspaper the PeoriaJournal Star declared that the governor was "going bonkers." Privately, a few people who know the governor describe him as a "sociopath," and they insist they're not using hyperbole. State representative Joe Lyons, a fellow Democrat from Chicago, told reporters that Blagojevich was a "madman" and "insane." "He shows absolutely no remorse," says Jack Franks, the Democratic state representative. "I don't think he gives a damn about anybody else's feelings. He tries to demonize people who disagree with him; he's got delusions of grandeur."
Basically, he's a less effective version of Richard Nixon. An amoral power-mad lunatic with delusions of grandeur and extremely poor social skills.
--Sam Boyd
Update: Blagojevich proposed selling the lottery, but it wasn't sold.
