Come To Jesus
ArchPundit
First, Good Rod has showed up and he’s got skillz when he’s talking on his own and not programmed. Give him a speech and I want to drill my eardrums out.
All Kids is both good politics and policy. It’s a creation of Good Rod and it’s the kind of thing that makes me feel guilty when I’m giving him hell. Certainly details will have to be worked out, but if you want to give kids a chance to succeed they need health care from reducing asthma prevalence to identifying high levels of lead early on to reduce the damage.
Regardless of his efforts to change the subject though, he still has an underlying problem he has not addressed that will be a drag on any effort at reelection. The ethics stench around him must be addressed and not simply ignored or brushed off as something that happens to everyone. When you ran on changing business as usual, it doesn’t work and the number of problems that keep cropping up is absurd.
Simply pushing for campaign finance reform doesn’t do enough. It needs to be specfiic distancing from those close to him who have been caught up in these problems. In particular, taking Tony Rezko to task should be a no brainer. Not only is Rezko involved in all sorts of influence peddling, he’s taking taxpayers for a ride while denying minority contractors a fair shot. This is a no brainer to move away from the clown and use him as a lesson learned to the public. The truth is that money and politics makes for just these sorts of ties and even the best intentioned (which Blagojevich isn’t) can be caught up in such scandals.
Reconnecting with that outrage and the outrage to grow as more political scandals hit the papers for the next year or so is essential to making a successful reelection run. As of September, Blagojevich was less popular than George Bush in a reliably blue leaning state–simply putting new programs out there isn’t going to do it.
Or the Governor can just hope the Republicans nominate Oberweis.