Outrageous

From the 'How Not to Build Support' playbook, comes this gem.

Shortly after his GRT proposal got shredded by the House, the Governor was speaking to a group at the Thompson Center in Chicago. (On an aside, I heard a couple clips from his comments on my drive home to Chicago, and I am at a complete loss to explain the incredible Southern drawl in his speech. It was as if he was imitating Hillary imitating Ellie May Clampett.)

In any event, the radio station did not play this clip that is reported on in today's Chicago Tribune column:

Blagojevich had sought to blunt the impact of the vote by suggesting beforehand that he wanted lawmakers to reject the referendum on his plan. But after the roll call he used a rally in Chicago to accuse legislators of being too cozy with business interests who "eat fancy steaks" and "shuffle around in Gucci loafers."

"Your lawmakers in Springfield sometimes forget where they came from. Sometimes they forget who hired them," Blagojevich said. "Waiting outside that chamber, where the people are supposed to have their representatives do their job, are all these high-powered lobbyists twisting their arms."

Riiight. Because everybody knows that Democrats have always been in the pocket of Big Business. Give me a break. For a guy who has raised the kind of money that he has from 'business interests' to level statements like that at the members of the General Assembly is unconscionable.

I don't enjoy being at odds with the Governor, and I think that it is safe to say that a majority of my colleagues would prefer a scenario in which cooperation would be used to achieve results for the greater good. But at this point it should be crystalline that the General Assembly is not going to be bullied into supporting a multi-billion dollar tax hike that it is not comfortable with.

Not that he could have gotten fewer votes then he did yesterday, but I doubt that yesterday's comments are going to help his case much.

One would think that yesterday's vote would be a wake-up call, not only about the substance of his proposal , but about the process of working with the Legislature. It sure doesn't sound like he got the message.

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