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Blagojevich warns Obama of GOP trap


gravyboy77

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Sorry blago, it looks like the money train is screeching to a halt.

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Blagojevich warns Obama of GOP trap

 

Posted by Robert Mitchum and Rick Pearson at 1:35 p.m.

 

Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich warned home-state presidential contender Barack Obama he is falling into a Republican trap by siding against the governor in a battle over ethics legislation that is dominating state politics.

 

Blagojevich’s unusual tactic of taking on the U.S. senator and favorite-son Democratic nominee raised the stakes in the governor's struggle with fellow Democrats who control state government.

 

Blagojevich’s aggressive fundraising is the target of the original ethics bill, which was overwhelmingly supported by Democrats and Republicans alike in the state legislature. It would prohibit state contractors and those seeking state business worth $50,000 or more from donating to the official who doles out the work. The governor rewrote the bill to include a variety of side issues and critics charge Blagojevich’s move was an attempt to sabotage the original measure.

 

On Thursday, Senate President Emil Jones said he bowed to a request from Obama and agreed to call senators into session next week to consider an override of Blagojevich’s changes, which the House has previously done. Obama, who has been promoting himself as a reformer, was trying to forestall a home-state controversy involving Jones, his political godfather, from becoming an issue on the national campaign trail.

 

Blagojevich's credibility on ethics has been shredded by a plethora of federal investigations of his administration. But on Friday the governor said GOP presidential nominee Sen. John McCain of Arizona can now blast Obama for supporting a weaker ethics reform plan than the one Blagojevich proposed.

 

“I think what happened here is a very clever ruse by the McCain campaign and by the Republicans,” Blagojevich said.

 

“Let me be clear: I don’t think he (Obama) should be asked to be involved in any of this. He’s busy running for president,” the governor said. “It’s the Republicans who dragged him into this issue. They’re the ones who called on him to call on Senate President Jones to act on the ethics bill.”

 

Actually, Blagojevich is only partially correct. One of the leading voices that called for Obama to intercede with Jones was Cindi Canary, the director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform. Her group was an active participant in the original ethics plan passed by lawmakers and a critic of the governor’s rewrite. Canary also worked with Obama during his tenure as an Illinois state senator on the passage of a previous bipartisan ethics bill.

 

Blagojevich maintained that if the Senate joins the House in overriding his changes to the bill, “sometime in October, in battleground states, you’ll be seeing TV ads that Republicans are putting up and the McCain campaign is putting up that will start accusing Sen. Obama of coming back to Illinois to help his old friends in the Illinois General Assembly."

 

The governor said the Senate "ought to pass the ethics bill that we’re proposing,” adding that “frankly, it would give Barack a chance to be able to run good TV ads saying he got involved in Illinois and changed the system.”

 

With his comments, Blagojevich has once again moved to buck Obama’s favorite-son presidential campaign. Earlier this month, in a move that again raised questions about whether he was out to promote himself more than Obama, Blagojevich told WGN-AM that Democrats should not criticize the experience of McCain’s running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, because “governors make decisions” while legislators like Obama “debate and they pass their bills back and forth.”

 

It’s highly doubtful that the Obama campaign needs or wants Blagojevich’s advice. The embattled Illinois governor was shunned by the Obama camp at the Democratic National Convention in Denver last month while several potential opponents to a possible Blagojevich third-term bid were showcased with floor speeches.

 

The Obama campaign has sought to distance itself from Blagojevich since the trial earlier this year of Antoin “Tony” Rezko, who was convicted on federal corruption charges involving his dealings with the Blagojevich administration. Rezko, a top fundraiser and adviser to Blagojevich, also had a fundraising relationship to the Democratic presidential nominee and was involved in a deal to purchase the land adjacent to Obama’s Hyde Park home.

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....I still am having trouble believing that this nut case is seriously thinking about a third term...

 

Of course when those of us who are sane and reside in this state....know we have a state full of idiots who will fall all over themselves to vote him back in....just like the state will fall over itself to vote for Obama Osama.

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