From the Chicago Tribune

$800,000 buys an inside look at state politics
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John Kass

December 5, 2003
For years I've been arguing that Illinois is a one-party state run by a clique of insiders, a bipartisan political combine from City Hall to Springfield.
Now there are 800,000 ways to prove it.
The $800,000 was paid to a top Illinois Republican as a consulting fee by Bear Stearns on a state bond deal engineered by Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
The $800,000 went to President Bush's lead political operative in Illinois.
Robert Kjellander is the $800,000 Republican big cheese. He's a friend of the president's political adviser, Karl Rove. He also serves the Bush 2004 campaign as Illinois and Midwest coordinator.
Blagojevich has been criticized by some for dealing with the Republicans. But I think he made a smart political move.
That $800,000 has caused rank-and-file Republicans to question the direction of their party and Kjellander's loyalties.
Republican politicians concede that their phones are still ringing, even though it's been a month since the story broke.
Ray Long, the Tribune's savvy Springfield correspondent, reported the Kjellander deal on Nov. 7. And I've waited weeks for it to get ripe.
It's legal. But this Republican fish smells like old anchovies left on a hot rock.
Illinois Republican Party Chairman Judy Baar Topinka, the state treasurer and heiress to the get-along, go-along George Ryan wing of the party, is defending the Kjellander payment.
"I don't think it will hurt the party," said Topinka. "There's nothing I can do. I can't limit anyone in a capitalistic system. Kjellander's done nothing wrong. He made his money. Others do it. They're lobbyists."
So I asked Topinka how Republicans--meaning the voters, not the pols--will view the Kjellander $800,000.
"Let's put it this way," she said. "There's no separation of parties when there are business deals going down here or in other states. Businesses hire lobbyists."
These days, Democrats and Republicans are congratulating themselves for passing state ethics legislation prompted by growing public anger over costly political sleaze.
Although cosmetic changes were made, this is Illinois and the song remains the same. It's ethics, shmethics, and this deal and that deal, until the political parties become indistinguishable from one another.
This blurring of party lines helps the combine. But it will hurt Bush in Illinois.
Kjellander (pronounced Shell-ander) has been an inside player for years. He wouldn't return my calls.
"There's politics, and there's business," Kjellander told Crain's Chicago Business, though he refused to say what he did for the money. He said he provided "good advice . . . that's what I do."
Maybe Kjellander will listen to some good advice from the late Ald. Lemuel Austin (34th).
One afternoon at City Hall, Austin was concerned about the grabby behavior of some colleagues.
"Pigs get fat," Austin declared, "but hogs get slaughtered."
The Illinois Republican Party once was a real political party. Then former Gov. Jim Thompson--a tax-and-spender of gargantuan appetite--took it over. The party lines blurred.
Thompson is the former Republican corruption-busting federal prosecutor. He's now the rainmaker for the law firm of Winston & Strawn. He held a fundraiser for Blagojevich and served on the governor's transition team.
These days, the state GOP stands for former Gov. George Ryan and for the dangerous bribe-paying truck drivers put on the highways when Ryan was secretary of state. In 1998 Republican and Democratic power brokers held their noses and pushed George into the governor's office.
This week, a new federal political corruption investigation became public at McCormick Place and Navy Pier.
Soon, I hope, the seamless bipartisan combine deals will be as plain as the giant Ferris wheel and those $100,000 twice-weekly fireworks shows.
As election seasons approach, Illinois political parties sometimes differentiate themselves, hoping to excite their core consumer base. The insiders call these core consumers "the true believers." It's always said with a snicker.
Next year, the Democrats can differentiate themselves by reminding voters they finally passed ethics legislation.
The Illinois Republicans can claim they stand for something, too, but what it is, exactly, they can't say, until Kjellander tells them.
When I was just starting to watch politics, while at a steakhouse lunch, I asked some veteran political operatives one of my typically dumb questions:
Why do the insiders get fat no matter which party is in power?
One old-timer explained. "When they're in, we're in," he said. "When they're out, we're in. We're always in."
This has always been the motto of the Illinois combine.
Bush should know that it is also the motto of his Illinois and Midwest Republican political coordinator.