"The strength of the Democratic Party of Cook County is not something that just happened." -Richard J. Daley

Some things are taken a little more seriously in Chicago than they are in other places. A day game at Wrigley Field, the blues clubs of Maxwell Street; these are civic treasures. However it is politics that is a civic religion.

Governor Rod Blagojevich is the latest in a long line of "colorful" public servants to come out of the Windy City. His arrest last week on charges of conspiracy and corruption was hardly shocking to anyone who knew his track record. But who is this well coiffed man in handcuffs exactly? Why does he matter, and how did he end up being the poster boy for all things crooked?

Blagojevich was born and raised in Northwestern Chicago, the son of Serbian immigrants who came to the United States after World War II. As a young man, Blagojevich wore many hats - everything from pizza delivery boy to amateur boxer. He even worked as a dishwasher on the Alaskan Pipeline construction crew to pay his way through college. However it would be in the blood sport of Illinois politics, not the "sweet science" of boxing, that Blagojevich would find his true calling.

Blagojevich received his J.D. from Pepperdine Law School in 1983 and returned to Chicago to clerk for Alderman Ed Vrdolyak. It was during this time that Vrdolyak was embroiled in one of the most notorious episodes in the history of the city, the so-called Council Wars. Vrdolyak and 28 other city aldermen, all but one of who was white, united to block the legislative agenda of Mayor Harold Washington. Washington was a fellow Democrat, and the city's first black Mayor.

Why would elected officials band together to fight a member of their own party? It may have been because of Washington's race, or it could have been because Washington dared to take a stand against the Daley Political Machine that many of these aldermen had come out of.

"Fast Eddie" Vrdolyak is a firm believer in machine politics, a convicted felon, possibly a racist, and would become Rod Balgojevich's first political mentor. Another member of the "Vrdolyak 29," Alderman Richard Mell, would eventually become a fierce political rival of Blagojevich's...as well as his Father-In-Law.

After serving four years in the State Legislature, Blagojevich won the Congressional seat in Illinois' 5th District in 1996. The seat had previously been held for 36 years by Vrdolyak ally Dan Rostenkowski. At the time of Blagojevich's victory, Rostenkowski was being convicted on federal charges of mail fraud and would eventually serve 15 months in prison.
In 2002, Blagojevich won a hard fought primary contest to become the Democratic nominee for Governor. During that primary season, Blagojevich's chief rival, former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris, won the endorsement of an up and coming State Senator named Barack Obama.

Obama would eventually throw his support behind Blagojevich for the general election. Earlier this year, incoming White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel told The New Yorker that he and Obama "participated in a small group that met weekly when Rod was running for governor."

"We basically laid out the general election, Barack and I and these two," said Emanuel.

Blagojevich would eventually capture 52 percent of the vote as Illinois elected its first Democratic Governor since 1972. Emanuel would go on win Blagojevich's vacated Congressional seat.

But not everyone was jumping on the Blago Bandwagon in 2002, however. ABC News reported that Obama's chief political strategist, David Axelrod, turned down a position on the 2002 campaign due to his concerns over Blagojevich's qualifications.

It would be in Springfield, IL that Blagojevich would truly make his mark. Working with a Democratic controlled state legislature and overseeing an annual budget that reached $65 billion in 2008, Blagojevich wasted no time in establishing himself as top political dog.

He became a champion of progressive legislation such as a state Earned Income Tax Credit, death penalty reform (continuing a trend begun by his jailed Republican predecessor, George Ryan), increased funding for public education, and ironically enough, imposed broad ethics reform.

Sound expensive? It was. With a $237 million deficit for Fiscal Year 2008, The Center for Tax and Budget Accountability recently reported that Illinois is "not on a sound fiscal footing."

The Governor also didn't seem particularly adroit at forming political alliances. In his six years as Governor, Blagojevich managed to alienate almost every member of his own party and worked his way to an approval rating the Chicago Tribune put at 13 percent as recently as November.

One Democrat, State Senator Mike Jacobs, almost came to blows with Blagojevich during an argument over a health care initiative. Jacobs described Blagojevich to the Associated Press as "a narcissistic individual" and observed that he "doesn't have enough sense to walk away" in the face of his latest scandal.

Democratic State Representative Jack Franks was somewhat blunter in his assessment of Blagojevich. "He's kryptonite," Franks told Chicago Magazine this past February, "Nobody wants to get near this guy."

Want a measure of Blagojevich's clout in Springfield? Last year he put a $7 billion tax increase before the state House of Representatives. Out of 118 Representatives, Blagojevich managed to convince exactly zero of them to vote for his proposal. On the day of the legislative shutout, according to the AP, Blagojevich didn't seem too fazed when he declared: "I feel good about it."

So what was Blagojevich's motivation to put a United States Senate seat on the open market? Was it a thirst for power? Perhaps it was a need to play kingmaker. Or it could have been the most basic of motivating factors, cold hard cash.

Blagojevich felt financially "stuck" in Illinois according to wiretaps, even though he is the third highest paid Governor in the nation with an annual salary of $177,412. While Blagojevich and his wife have a combined annual income of $344,000, his campaign fund has paid over $1 million in legal fees since 2005 and still owes one Chicago area law firm $750,000, according to the AP.

"I want to make money," Blagojevich is quoted as saying on the now-infamous tapes where he sums up a seat in the United States Senate as "A [f**king] valuable thing. You just don't give it away for nothing."

Of course, if Blagojevich wanted to get rich, he probably chose the wrong profession. Most companies that have an annual budget of $65 billion would probably pay their CEO considerably more than $177,412 a year. Then again, most companies that were more than $230 million in the red would start looking for a new CEO - save for the mortgage giants and the American auto industry, of course.

In the case of Rod Blagojevich, his shareholders are the voters of the state of Illinois who decided to return him to an office he felt "stuck" in when he was re-elected comfortably in 2006. The question then must be asked, is Blagojevich to blame? Or rather is it the voters who twice handed him the keys to the capitol who need to shoulder the responsibility?

Lost in all the late night jokes and water cooler talk is the hard answer to that tough question. Perhaps Blagojevich loved wielding his power no matter the consequences, even if the consequence was crossing a newly elected President. Perhaps he was just plain money hungry, looking for a quick score when something bleeping valuable fell into his lap. Or perhaps he was just playing politics the only way he knew how, as a full contact sport.


Also Interesting:

[+} BREAKING NEWS: U.S. Air Marshals arrested in droves

[+] FCC takes on cable companies for deceptive practices

[+] Virginia DMV manager gave driver's licenses to illegals, feds say 

[+] Is the White House supporting discrimination on the basis of faith?