* This is an early draft of one of my potential pieces for the Washington Post contest, but I didn't choose it to submit, so I thought I'd post it on rural thoughts.
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Illinois, my home state, is a good learning lab for politics. Just think, the current Democratic President of the U.S., the Senate Democratic Whip, and the impeached Democratic governor, are all from here.

I met Rod Blagojevich once. It was at the union hall in Metropolis. He was friendly and at ease with the crowd. He was surprised when I indicated that I knew where he lived and that Kristi’s parents were in his immediate neighborhood. But he was pretty perky the whole time.

I always wondered how he did it. Blagojevich was a U.S. representative in a district in the N.W. Chicago. No one knew anything about him in Southern Illinois. Some say that you can carry Illinois in Chicago, but others say that you need some downstate. Probably some truth in both.

Former Illinois State Senator Larry Woolard, (who easily defeated me and Ned Mitchell in the primary for that seat), who later quit the state senate to become Blagojevich’s appointed “assistant governor” for all of southern Illinois, was the first major southern Illinois politician to endorse Blagojevich. It was a surprise to me. I had no idea they even knew each other, but I guess that they worked together in the Illinois General Assembly. A couple of good horse traders.

There was a full primary for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, including now embattled U.S. senator Roland Burris. Blagojevich had the most support of the party of establishment. With Woolard’s support in southern Illinois, and no southern Illinois candidate, Blagojevich won the primary carrying a lot of southern Illinois.

That ended over 24 consecutive years of Republican governorships in Illinois. It’s hard to believe that in one of the bluest states in the country but. I guess that shows what 24 straight years of Republican administration will do to the collective judgment.

But of all the people to end that reign, Blagojevich seems such an unlikely candidate. Knowing Illinois politics, Blagojevich’s governorship had to be the result of a lot of dealmaking. And that dealmaking was being made at the highest levels of Illinois and ultimately national politics.

That’s where I have to roll my eyes a bit over the whole drama of the impeachment proceedings. Illinois is a wheelin’ and dealin’ political state. Sure, what Blagojevich was doing was unseemly, and sure, prosecute him for his corruption. But also, prosecute all the other wheeler dealers in the Illinois state government that make outrageous political deals.

Blagojevich is a colorful character. He’s historic. He wasn’t really governor material, but how many have been? But when Blagevich became a national story, all perspective vanished. And not that he should be defended. Let his lawyers do that. But the stories about him were pretty shallow. They didn’t delve very deep into Illinois politics. Even in the aftermath of his book, the rest of the Dems have escaped much connection at all with Rod.

That has to be frustrating to Blagojevich, but it’s a cold, cruel world. Nevertheless, I think that there is more here than the public has been lead to believe. The backroom political horsetrading has to be brought out into the light of democracy. Those that don’t want to do it need to be exposed. If the Blagojevich saga can help ultimately to advance a more open government, then it served a purpose. If the end result is just to make a political pinata out of Blagojevich, the mainstream media has missed a chance.