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2 sides of a troubled governor, sinking deeper
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Behind the scenes, though, members of Mr. Blagojevich’s staff saw a different man: one who was deeply concerned about his appearance (particularly his signature black hair, which he ignored suggestions to change) and who usually worked from his home or his North Side campaign office and could often be seen, mid- or late-morning, making a six-mile run trailed by his security team.
“God forbid you make a mistake,” said one longtime former employee. In December 2003, the employee recalled, Mr. Blagojevich flew into a rage because he thought he was late for a holiday tree-lighting ceremony in Springfield, and his two young daughters — who were visiting with Santa Claus in the parlor of the Governor’s Mansion — did not have their shoes on yet. “You’re trying to sabotage my career!” the employee recalled Mr. Blagojevich screaming at staff members, as he charged into the parlor. “You’re the worst!”
At Christmastime in 2004, a nasty spat cropped up between Mr. Blagojevich and Mr. Mell and the fallout stretched well beyond the family, offering some of the clearest public hints of Mr. Blagojevich’s coming troubles.
Mr. Blagojevich shut down a landfill operated by a relative of Mr. Mell, saying it was taking types of waste it was not licensed to accept. Mr. Mell accused Mr. Blagojevich of shutting the facility as a personal vendetta against him, and then accused his top fund-raiser of trading appointments to state commissions and boards for campaign donations, just the image Mr. Blagojevich had been trying to avoid.
Though Mr. Mell (who is said to still be estranged from the Blagojevich family) later recanted his comments, state officials said they were investigating, and, in 2006, a letter between federal and state prosecutors became public, revealing that Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the federal prosecutor, was already investigating claims of “endemic hiring fraud” in the Blagojevich administration.
Mr. Blagojevich said that he welcomed “each and every agency” that was seeking the truth. But, with the passing months, lawmakers and other colleagues said the pressure of the investigation seemed to weigh on the governor.
Knowledge of the investigation was widespread when Mr. Blagojevich ran for re-election in 2006, and he still won 50 percent of the vote. Some political experts thought Judy Baar Topinka, then the Republican state treasurer, was weak opposition to Mr. Blagojevich’s one-on-one charm. And Mr. Blagojevich spent $27 million, nearly three times what Ms. Topinka spent.
“We couldn’t compete on the money angle of it, and maybe now we know why,” Ms. Topinka said last week, adding that she had long been told by lobbyists that they had to “drop a $10,000 entry fee” to work with Mr. Blagojevich. “Anything that didn’t move was sold,” she asserted.
Still, as time went on, colleagues said fund-raising seemed to grow increasingly difficult even for Mr. Blagojevich, who had always been seen as a master at it.
Legal bills, meanwhile, began to mount: his campaign records show he had paid more than $1 million to a law firm, Winston and Strawn (which no longer represents him), and a report as of June 30 this year revealed that the campaign owed $750,000 more to the firm.
Other politicians began to avoid public appearances with him and speaking invitations dropped. Mr. Blagojevich, who had once seemed to bask in news coverage, found himself answering questions about the corruption investigations at nearly every event. After his arrest on Tuesday, Mr. Blagojevich met with almost no one, other than lawyers and ministers.
Not long after his spat with his father-in-law was made public in early 2005, setting off more corruption investigations, Mr. Blagojevich reflected on his work, and said it had changed him in a way.
“What I’ve discovered since I’ve been governor is that there’s a certain loneliness to this job,” he said in an interview. “There’s a loneliness and a certain sadness because you have to isolate yourself to some extent. There are so many people who want so many different things from you.”
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