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At the risk of sounding like Freud, none of this would have happened had Governor Blagojevich not lost sight of who he was or where he came from or, most importantly, whom he owed for his success. His relentless desire to shake down folks doing business with the state, his hunger to build the mightiest of political machines, his obsession to be the man, the kingmaker, the top pol in Illinois–it all stems from the fact that he would be nothing if not for alderman Richard Mell, and he knows it.
The betrayal was almost immediate. On election night Blagojevich thanked just about everyone except for Mell, and he immediately tried to set up his own political operation. In retrospect, I think Blagojevich’s purpose was twofold. He was making sure he wouldn’t have to depend on Mell for his next election. Beyond that, he had presidential aspirations, and he probably thought it would hurt his reformer’s image to have close ties to an old cuss from Chicago’s Democratic machine.
