Obama’s intervention on Ethics Bill indirectly led to case against Governor

Obama’s unusual decision to inject himself into a state issue during the height of his presidential campaign was a reminder that despite his historic ascendancy to the White House, he has never quite escaped the murky and insular world of Illinois politics.

It is a world he has long navigated, to the consternation of his critics, by engaging in a kind of realpolitik, Chicago-style, which allowed him to draw strength from his relationships with important players without becoming compromised by their many weaknesses.

By the time Obama intervened on the ethics measure, his relationship with Blagojevich had cooled as the Governor became increasingly engulfed in legal troubles. There is nothing in the criminal complaint unsealed on Tuesday to indicate that he knew anything about plans to seek money and favours in exchange for his Senate seat, and he has never been implicated in any other “pay to play” cases that have emerged from the long-running investigation of the Blagojevich administration.

Yet, the Blagojevich scandal features the same political characters who figured in various stages of Obama’s climb from little-known state Senator to presidential candidate. Some of those relationships posed a threat to Obama during the campaign, forcing him to return tens of thousands of dollars in tainted campaign contributions and providing fodder for attack ads by rival candidates.

They were emblematic of the path cut by Obama through Chicago politics, where he became known for making alliances of convenience with personalities that seemed antithetical to his self-image as a progressive reformer.

When he ran for Senate in 2004, he courted Jones, a sewer inspector-turned-legislator who was viewed as a kingmaker in the Illinois Democratic Party.

Obama was adviser to Blagojevich’s first campaign for Governor in 2002, and endorsed him again in 2006, even though by that time questions had been raised about the possible selling of state jobs.

Obama has also credited one of Blagojevich’s closest confidants, Antoin Rezko, a businessman who was convicted of corruption charges this year, with helping him get his own start in politics. Rezko was among the first to contribute to Obama’s State Senate race in 1995, and later became a fund-raiser for his campaign for the Senate.

During the call over the Illinois Ethics Bill, Obama used leverage that he had seldom employed, and strongly urged Jones to bypass Blagojevich and approve the law, banning the so-called pay-for-play system of influence-peddling in Illinois. Asked at the time how Obama had come to be involved, Jones had said, “He’s a friend”.