Golden (16 page)

As the century turned and the nation focused on electing a new president, Blagojevich focused on his next move. Just a little more than a year in office and the incumbent governor, Republican George Ryan, was becoming increasingly unpopular amid a growing scandal that focused mostly on his previous elected office, secretary of state.

Rod had disliked and shown such a disinterest in Congress, the only move that made sense to him was running for governor. The Senate was out of the question and staying in the House, even though he once again was going to face nominal competition in the fall, was not an option. He would still likely be a member of the minority party, and his patience, what little he had of it, was running ever thinner. Now was the time to move. But first he wanted to feel out some of his fellow Democrats and let them spread the word that if he did throw in, he wouldn't back down.

Blagojevich called up US Rep. Jan Schakowsky. The two met at her offices on Broadway in Chicago. Although she was new to the office, Blagojevich wanted Schakowsky's support. She also wasn't a threat. Of all the Democrats who might run, Schakowsky wasn't one of them. She was still too new.

Soon after the two sat down, Blagojevich sprung the news on her. With a fierce, almost crazed, look in his eye and a tenor to his voice that insisted he was serious, Blagojevich told her he was planning on running for governor. He wanted to do things, make a change in people's lives. This business of just voting on things and being a backbencher wasn't for him. Not anymore. And he didn't care what other Democrats ran against him in the primary. He was a good fundraiser and he'd only get better.

“I'm going to roll the dice and do this. I'm not staying in DC, I can't,” he told her. “I've got a death wish,” is how he phrased it. Blagojevich didn't even care if he lost.

“A death wish?” Schakowsky said. “You've got to have a better pitch than that.”

Milan Petrovic flipped on the radio as he steered his SUV down a northwest Indiana highway. A report on a Chicago station crackled across the speakers about young Chicago congressman Rod Blagojevich. Barren trees on the chilly spring day became a blur in the side-view mirrors as Petrovic's mind wandered.

A former Northwestern University basketball player who had become a well-known fundraiser for Indiana Democrats, Petrovic was thinking of expanding into Illinois. When he heard Blagojevich's name, he thought he might have found a good fit. Blagojevich had made a name for himself, even in Indiana, with his mission to Kosovo. Petrovic was also Serbian. This could be his
in
into the world of Illinois politics.

When he got to work, Petrovic called Blagojevich's congressional office and got patched through to his chief of staff, Dave Stricklin. Petrovic said he was looking for Blagojevich's political office because he wanted to host a fundraiser for the congressman. Stricklin asked Petrovic how long he had known Blagojevich.

“I don't know him at all,” Petrovic said coolly.

Do you live in his congressional district?

“I live in Indiana.”

Stricklin thought the call might be a joke. Why do you want to throw a fundraiser for a congressman you don't know and can't even vote for? Petrovic tried to explain that there was a large Serbian community in northwest
Indiana and he liked what he'd heard about Blagojevich. Serbs like to help their own. “Go ahead and check my reputation among Indiana's congressional delegation,” he assured Stricklin, who got off the phone without making any promises.

A few weeks later, Petrovic's phone rang. Blagojevich himself was on the other end and quickly got to the point.

“How much money do you think you can raise?” he asked.

“Ten thousand dollars,” Petrovic said.

Blagojevich sounded impressed. OK, set it up. I'll be there.

Petrovic hadn't really thought it through but felt $10,000 wouldn't be hard to come up with, given his contacts. His plan was to host the fundraiser at his home in Munster, Indiana. He'd invite all the businesspeople and Serbs he knew. Over the next few months, he invited friends and associates and fine-tuned the details but never heard another word from Blagojevich or his staff.

The day before the fundraiser, Blagojevich called. “We have a problem,” he said. Congress was going to be in session the next two days. He wasn't sure he could make it. Petrovic stammered and explained all the work he put in and all the people he invited.

“Do you think you'll hit your number?” Blagojevich pressed. Petrovic assured him he would. Blagojevich paused and exhaled. “OK, I'll make it.”

The next day, partiers funneled into Petrovic's home around six in the evening, mingling and asking where the man of the hour was. Petrovic assured them Blagojevich would be there any minute. By 7:15 P
M
—fifteen minutes before the party was supposed to end—a white Cadillac pulled up in front of the house. Blagojevich got out and walked briskly into Petrovic's home, directly past his host, whom he still hadn't even met, and his wife, Anne. Petrovic had to tap Blagojevich on the shoulder to introduce himself.

The spacious home was packed with Democratic players and Serbs from the region. Blagojevich worked them all for hours, telling jokes, riffing about life in DC, and discussing his vision for the nation. The guests, as they always seemed to be with Blagojevich, were charmed. Several handed Petrovic checks and thanked him for the invitation.

Before anyone realized, it was 10:30 P
M.
A Blagojevich aide told Petrovic the congressman had to go. But first, they needed those checks. Petrovic had them gathered in a sloppy pile. He didn't want to just hand them over and couldn't fit them all into an envelope. Scanning the room looking for something bigger to put them in, he spotted a purple sack that held a bottle
of Crown Royal Whisky. Petrovic grabbed the bag off the bottle and began jamming the checks into the sack, several at a time. By the time he was done, checks were flowing out of the top.

As the Cadillac headed off and curved around the corner, Blagojevich immediately turned to his aide and asked, “How'd we do tonight?” The aide held up the purple sack, still overflowing with checks. Blagojevich smiled and asked the driver to pull over. There, on the side of the road, Blagojevich turned on the car's interior lights and started counting. When he was done, the number amazed him: almost $30,000.

The next day, Petrovic's phone rang. It was Blagojevich thanking him for the splendid event. A few days after that, Blagojevich sent flowers to Petrovic's wife. And a few weeks after that, Blagojevich came to town and took Petrovic out to lunch and then to dinner. Then he asked Petrovic a question.

“When do you think you can throw me another fundraiser?”

The money Petrovic raised in 2000 went into Blagojevich's congressional campaign fund. But by then, Blagojevich was already well on his way to running for the state's highest office.

Money would be key to winning. And Blagojevich was forming a plan that would blow away the competition by placing control of fund-raising in the hands of men such as Petrovic who were beholden to him—and not to Mell.

Since that first meeting five years earlier outside the North Side restaurant, Chris Kelly had also grown increasingly close to Blagojevich. They would talk on the phone about politics, business, and sports—mostly baseball and especially the Cubs. Blagojevich told others he looked up to Kelly, even admired him, for having made something of himself in the roofing business.

He saw a little bit of himself in Kelly. Here was a guy who is a lot like me, Blagojevich would say. He didn't have much growing up, but he hustled and worked at it, and now look at him. He was a player. He wasn't somebody who was born rich and had things handed to him. “He's a true American superstar,” is how Blagojevich once described him.

While not from wealth, Kelly didn't grow up in the midst of poverty either. He came from an upper-middle-class family in downstate Champaign, where the University of Illinois campus is located. He studied
landscape architecture there but decided to get into the roofing business, having dabbled in it through his father, who was a contractor.

He learned the trade and made friends with contractors and government officials over a decade of work with a firm run by William Cleary on Chicago's South Side. But by the mid-1990s, Kelly split with Cleary and started his own roofing firm, BCI Roofing. He teamed up with Ronald Rossi, the developer he was with the first night he met Blagojevich, and another buddy, Robert Blum, who owned Castle Construction. Blum and Kelly shared office space in south suburban Markham, and by 1998, BCI won a $7 million roofing contract at O'Hare Airport. Rossi and Castle were well on their way to collectively winning tens of millions of dollars in city contracts, much of it at O'Hare.

But Kelly also had a dark side.

Rather than behaving like he was raised well-off in a university town, he often acted like he came from the mean streets of Chicago's South Side. Tall and beefy, with slicked back salt-and-pepper hair and a crushing handshake, Kelly became successful with raspy-voiced tough talk, nonstop bluster, and incessant schemes.

When he dressed up, he wore fitted suits and fancy ties, looking the part of a successful businessman. But he preferred casual attire, typically untucked dress shirts, slacks, and sunglasses, which he often wore inside when meeting new people to prevent them from seeing his eyes.

He had battled demons in his past with addiction. When he drank to excess, things often got ugly as Kelly became loud and boorish. His efforts to become a teetotaler never stuck.

As Kelly made more money, he enjoyed it—and flaunted it. He bought a large home and took nice vacations with his wife and three daughters. He also wagered with Chicago bookies and took trips nearly every weekend to Las Vegas, where he was known by casino operators as a high-roller.

“He was almost a caricature of himself. Everything about him was exaggerated,” one close Blagojevich confidant later recalled. “His voice was overly hoarse, like he was doing a bad impression of Marlon Brando from
The Godfather.
It's like he had an image of what a ‘player' was supposed to be and then he tried to emulate it.”

When he got introduced into the world of politics and got closer to Blagojevich, Kelly became more interested—even infatuated—with the power of this new world. He invited Blagojevich to various fundraisers, and their friendship deepened. When Blagojevich discussed running for governor
and asked Kelly to help quarterback his fund-raising, Kelly relished the idea. It was a perfect fit for both men. Not only was it a chance for Kelly to get more involved in politics, but also Blagojevich thought Kelly had the talents he needed to be successful. Although he hadn't done it before, Blagojevich felt Kelly's business acumen allowed him to one day schmooze businessmen and union leaders to donate to the campaign and then the next day pick up the phone and aggressively ask them “where is the fucking money?”