Golden (23 page)

One way Jim Ryan tried to counter the bad news was by pulling a play from Blagojevich's book: he launched an early TV commercial blitz downstate. The commercial hit Blagojevich on supporting gay marriage and abortion and favoring gun control laws. Ryan's ad hit the air in the first week of June, a record at the time for the earliest political commercial airing in a general election for governor in Illinois.

Inside Blagojevich's campaign headquarters on Lincoln Avenue, Wilhelm, Monk, Blagojevich, and others decided how to respond. “We're not going to let any negative go unanswered,” Wilhelm declared. Two days later, Blagojevich hit the air with a commercial that showed a split-screen. One side had Jim Ryan, the other George Ryan. “Jim Ryan didn't lift a finger” to stop George Ryan's corruption gone amok, it said.

It was the start of the Blagojevich campaign's nonstop strategy to inexorably link Jim and George.

Blagojevich's ability to so quickly respond to Ryan's commercials only cemented his burning desire to destroy Ryan in the race for funds.

With the help of a plane being donated by Blair Hull, a wealthy former securities trader and ex-Las Vegas card counter, Blagojevich continued crisscrossing the state raising gobs of money to sell his message on television. Hull loaned the plane because he was eyeing the idea of running for US Senate in 2004 and wanted to see how politics worked from the inside.

Blagojevich was happy to use Hull and his plane as he, Kelly, and Rezko also worked the phones, coaxing, manipulating, and straight-up pressuring fundraisers to come up with more and more cash. In Springfield, one lobbyist was set to raise $35,000 for Blagojevich—an amount he and the campaign had agreed to weeks earlier. But when the event got closer, Blagojevich got on the phone and pushed for more.

“We need $70,000 from you,” he told him. The lobbyist, not wanting to upset Blagojevich, said he could do $40,000. “You don't understand. I want $70,000,” Blagojevich responded before slamming the phone.

Stories like that filled the taverns where politicians and insiders gathered. Blagojevich was doing more than demolishing every fund-raising record in the state. He was changing the dynamic of how fund-raising was conducted in Illinois. Even other politicians picked up on it. Less than two years later, as Barack Obama was running for US Senate, an Obama aide who knew Blagojevich saw a little hint of the governor in his candidate when Obama was on the phone squeezing a fundraiser for more cash when he said, “I want you to feel a little pain, brother.”

Even Blagojevich's favorites like Milan Petrovic weren't immune from the demands.

When Petrovic came up $7,000 short for an event at Harry Caray's Steakhouse that was supposed to raise $300,000, both Blagojevich and Kelly exploded in anger.

“What is wrong with you? Why are you falling short?” Kelly asked, in what Petrovic viewed as yet another attempt to undercut him in front of Blagojevich.

Petrovic held his tongue, refusing to yell back at Blagojevich that he was ninety minutes late and $7,000 in checks probably walked out the door because of it.

But there was little arguing the results. In just six months Blagojevich raised more than $7.5 million to Ryan's $4.8 million. Even worse for Ryan,
Blagojevich still had $3.8 million in the bank; Ryan had just $689,000. Those early commercials had taken a toll on Ryan's bank account.

Bars covered the windows and a tall black security fence surrounded the single-story, red brick office building at 853 N. Elston Avenue. Tucked between two nondescript apartment buildings, few neighbors knew what was going on inside the building that housed Rezmar Development Group where business was still booming for Tony Rezko. But on August 30, Rezko had an appointment on his agenda for a meeting that didn't have to do with real estate or development. He had invited his longtime friend Ali Ata over to talk about the future of state government.

Ata and Rezko were cut from a similar cloth. While Rezko came to America from Syria as a young man, Ata arrived from Jordan. He too wanted to make a better life for himself and came to America in 1970 to study engineering. After graduating, he worked for a suburban water treatment company, Nalco Chemical in Naperville, a job where he earned five patents and ascended the corporate ladder for a quarter century. Then came the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Days later, FBI agents visited Ata, who shared a similar name to one of the hijackers, Mohamed Atta. Ata had nothing to do with the attacks, but two weeks later, his employer offered him an early retirement package. Only in his late forties, Ata got the message and took the buyout. But he was embarrassed and angry.

Ata had been involved in Illinois politics for years. In the 1970s, he met Dick Mell and supported him for alderman. The two men became friendly, so much so that in the early 1980s Mell had introduced his eldest daughter, Patti, to him while she was still in high school. In the 1990s, Ata got to know Blagojevich and supported him, contributing to his campaign for Congress. When Blagojevich was looking for money to get his campaign for governor off the ground, he and Mell visited Ata and asked if he would be willing to help. Ata quickly said he would. His friend Rezko also would be involved in the campaign, he learned, and Ata hosted a pair of fundraisers at Rezko's request, promising Rezko he'd raise $25,000. He even contributed $5,000 himself. As the election proceeded, Ata noticed Rezko had even more sway with Blagojevich than he first realized. The two men began talking about what would happen if Blagojevich won.

Rezko suggested Ata identify a few posts in state government he might want. Since leaving Nalco, Ata was trying his hand as a self-employed financier, but he desperately wanted a post high up in state government to prove himself legitimate after his post-September 11 humiliation. After surfing the Internet, Ata came up with three: the Capital Development Board, which is the construction management arm of state government, the Department of Transportation, and the Department of Human Services.

As Rezko encouraged Ata to look for jobs he might like in a Blagojevich administration, he also harped on him to donate more money to Blagojevich's campaign. So when Ata showed up for the meeting in late August, he brought with him an envelope containing a check for $25,000. It wasn't the first time he'd been to Rezko's offices on Elston, Ata recalled years later while testifying in federal court. The modern offices, with glass everywhere and exposed brick walls, had been a hotbed of political clout, with movers and shakers like Springfield insider William Cellini frequently walking the hallways. And after Rezko greeted him at the door and took him to a conference room, he saw the state's new power structure: Lon Monk, Chris Kelly, State Representative Jay Hoffman, and Blagojevich himself.

Rezko told Ata these men were Rod's “kitchen cabinet.” If elected, Blagojevich would have an official cabinet, but these were his most-trusted advisers. Ata sat down with Rezko and Blagojevich, and Rezko soon slapped the envelope with the $25,000 check inside down on the table between himself and Blagojevich.

Rezko and Blagojevich then began talking about Ata as if he weren't in the room. Looking at Blagojevich, Rezko said Ata was a good supporter and team player and he wanted to work for the administration if Rod won in November. Blagojevich nodded and told Rezko that Ata had indeed been a supporter of his and a friend. He then asked Rezko if Ata had identified any job opportunities. He had, Rezko responded.

While Blagojevich bounded across the state raising money, he was also busy selling his message of jobs and opportunities for the working class. But mostly, he was declaring that he—not Jim Ryan—would be the agent of change to bring reform to state government.

In doing so, though, he sometimes got his wires crossed. He told teachers that education would be his top priority. Business leaders later heard
the same line about business. Even later he made the same pledge to social service advocates. He promised more money for everybody, even though Illinois faced a historic deficit.

It became so much that even Blagojevich himself acknowledged it as a joke.

“I've made 122,478 campaign promises in this race, and I am going to keep every one of them,” he laughed during a speech before a crowd of teachers at a union picnic in Glenview, a northern Chicago suburb. At a fundraiser later in the campaign, the number soared to “227,478 promises.”

Blagojevich also looked to continue sticking it in the eye of the powers that be, which he felt also helped sell him as a reformer. Seizing on a series of
Chicago Tribune
stories detailing questionable state spending projects, Blagojevich slammed one that went to a former University of Notre Dame classmate of Speaker Madigan's for a livestock show. Blagojevich said the grants showed “arrogance” on the speaker's part.

The comment only rekindled the two men's general dislike for each other. Madigan, focused on getting his daughter Lisa elected attorney general, hadn't been helping Blagojevich's campaign, and Blagojevich was sending him a message that he wasn't to be trifled with. Two days later Madigan sent his own message on Democrat Day at the Illinois State Fair.

Madigan wasn't usually much for talking to reporters, but he took time to defend himself against Blagojevich's accusations and add that he wouldn't be attacking Blagojevich because he was going to take the higher ground.

“I don't plan to be critical of other Democrats. I don't plan to be critical of Blagojevich,” Madigan said in his nasal Southwest Side accent. “I could talk about some of his indiscretions, but I don't plan to do that because I plan to be a strong party chair and work to bring all the Democrats together.”

And just in case any reporters missed it the first time, he repeated the word: “Indiscretions.”

Reporters hadn't missed it. What did he mean? Indiscretions? Speaker, what are you talking about?

It was a brilliant word for Madigan to use. It meant nothing and everything at the same time. The minds of reporters raced. Was he talking about sex? Rod used to be a state legislator, after all, and Springfield during legislative sessions wasn't much different from a college frat party for many of them. Something else?

But Madigan was gone, refusing to elaborate and coolly walking off from the media scrum. He left the word
indiscretions
hanging in the air like a
gigantic stink bomb ready to explode all over the Democratic nominee for governor.

Minutes later, Blagojevich said whatever he could to stop the bomb from bursting, saying he didn't know what Madigan was talking about. The public was left with lots of smoke, no fire, but plenty of evidence the Illinois Democratic Party was happy to gather in a circle and shoot.