From the Rockford Register Star:

Euphoria from 2002 election all but gone for Blagojevich
Nov 03, 2007 @ 06:55 PM
By Aaron Chambers
RRSTAR.COM
SPRINGFIELD -
When Rod Blagojevich first ran for governor in 2002, he promised to clean up corruption in state government and make the state work for ordinary people.

He rode into office with a landslide victory to the cheers of fellow Democrats and the grooves of Elvis, his hero.

Five years later, Blagojevich's approval rating is in the tank at 23 percent — a point below Richard Nixon's poorest rating. Lawmakers of
both political parties say they don't trust him to keep his word or honor his commitments.

Federal investigators have probed his administration's hiring, contracting and fundraising practices.

In recent months, a feud between Blagojevich and lawmakers, particularly House Speaker Michael Madigan, has blown wide open and brought major initiatives, from capital construction to more money for
schools, to a grinding halt. Blagojevich and lawmakers are staring at a
stalled $25 billion capital program.

Lawmakers and observers diverge on how — or if — Blagojevich could
extricate himself from his predicament. Some say he must learn how to work with others and stop browbeating those who don't go along. Others
doubt he can recover.

"He has not engaged the process," said Chris Mooney, professor of political studies at the University of Illinois at Springfield. "He doesn't appear to understand that this is a group effort rather than an
individual thing where he just gets his way all the time."

Nelson Kimbrough, a 54-year-old Rockford man who has spent the past 35
years as a laborer, feels the government gridlock each day.

"I've seen good times and I've seen bad times, but I've never seen it this bad in construction," said Kimbrough.

Kimbrough blamed his lack of steady work on the absence of a state capital plan. He said he can't afford to take his wife to dinner.

"We eat a lot of beans to improvise, and then I go fishing and we eat fish to make the ends meet," he said.

The state last approved a major capital plan in 1999, the first year of
GOP Gov. George Ryan's administration. State-backed construction of roads, bridges, schools and other infrastructure has all but dried up since then.

Blagojevich and lawmakers also spent months arguing about a bill necessary to release $617 million for public schools. The bill would modify the school funding formula which governs the state Board of Education's allocation of money.

The board won't release the additional dollars until the formula is changed, which lawmakers Friday approved. Blagojevich, however, wouldn't say whether he would sign it into law. Spokeswoman Rebecca Rausch said he was reviewing it.

"We have no consistency or ability to long-range plan based on what they're doing at the state level," said Nancy Kalchbrenner, president of the Rockford School Board.

Observers say Blagojevich's governing style is partly to blame.

"You can't just constantly present everything as a done deal without ever talking to any of the other players in the game, and then act surprised when they get upset," said Jay Stewart, director of the Better Government Association in Chicago. "The governor has done that time and time and time again."

Blagojevich shunned the capital city for much of his first term. He refused to move his family from their Chicago bungalow to the Executive
Mansion in Springfield. And when he came here for work, he often would
fly home at night and back in the morning rather than spend a night at
the mansion.

It didn't help relations with lawmakers, lobbyists and other workers at
the Capitol — folks who generally stay full-time in Springfield during
session — when Blagojevich vilified them.

Now finishing the first year of his second term, Blagojevich, 50, can't
get away from Springfield. Lawmakers refused to approve Blagojevich's plan for universal health care, his top priority this year. They also rejected his plan for a gross receipts tax on businesses, which Blagojevich wanted to use to support the health-care program and other
spending.

Now he is advocating additional casinos to generate more tax dollars for state spending, even though he ruled out all forms of gambling expansion during his 2002 campaign. He is standing by his pledge to not
raise income or sales taxes.

Rausch, the governor's spokeswoman, said the governor is moving closer
to his policy goals, particularly universal health care.

"It's been long," she said of the 2007 session. "It's been difficult. It hasn't been fun at times," she said. "But the results are there now,
and we think they're even going to potentially get better in the days and weeks ahead."

Rausch said a capital plan appeared imminent, though there is no agreement on how to fund the program.

"We feel like we're on the brink of a capital construction program for
the first time in eight years, and that's progress," she said. "And maybe that's progress that's only been achieved because we've been here
working for so long."

The governor's office declined to grant an interview with him, preferring to let Rausch speak for Blagojevich.

The governor's reign has been marked by verbal battles.

The State Board of Education was a "Soviet-style bureaucracy" when Blagojevich wanted to seize the agency. Businesses weren't paying "their fair share" when he wanted to impose a gross receipts tax. Lawmakers were spending like "drunken sailors" when they didn't agree with his budget plans. Madigan, a fellow Chicago Democrat who also is state party chairman, was "a right-wing Republican" when Madigan joined
Republicans and engineered the defeat of the gross receipts tax.

Lawmakers responded in kind when he repeatedly called them into summertime session. Rep. Joe Lyons, D-Chicago, called him a "madman" and "insane." Rep. Rosemary Mulligan, R-Des Plaines, called him a "blithering idiot."

Even mild-mannered Sen. Larry Bomke, R-Springfield, called him a "jerk."

His image hit bottom in late October when an Illinois Wesleyan University poll put his statewide job approval rating at just 23 percent. Even in Cook County, the heart of Democratic power, just 29 percent of respondents approved of his performance.

Last Sunday, a Chicago Tribune editorial called Blagojevich "the governor who cannot govern." The paper said Illinoisans should consider
changing the state Constitution to add a recall process so they can remove him before the end of his term.

"We've really reached the point where the only thing he could do is produce a little bit of humility, and show his face around this Capitol
a little more, be available to the rank and file and not try to shove proposals — even when they're good proposals — down people's throats," said Cindi Canary, director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform. "But I fear that would be a pretty dramatic personality shift,
and I'm not necessarily banking on it."

Any rehabilitation by Blagojevich must begin with a mea culpa — an admission of guilt expressing "a realization that leadership entails teamwork and negotiation and mutual trust and respect," said Rep. John
Fritchey, D-Chicago.

Sen. Kirk Dillard, R-Hinsdale, has another take on the situation.

"For Rod Blagojevich to improve his relationship with the General Assembly and the voters, it would almost take divine intervention," he
said.

Mooney, the UIS professor, said Blagojevich could improve his image simply by working in a neutral — rather than abrasive — fashion.

"It's been so bad that you almost have to (make an) effort to screw up
as bad as he has done," Mooney said. "A caretaker governor could have done better."