I enjoy voting.  I see at as my civic duty, but I also can get really into certain political issues.  I just wish that as an Illinois voter, I had more options in terms of whom to vote FOR.  It seems that the majority of the time, in the state-wide races, we have a choice between bad and worse.  This has been evidenced in the hugely publicized case of our current governor, Rod Blagojevich (I have nick-names for his as well, such as Governor Good-hair, B-Rod, or the ever popular yet simple Blago).  The day that he was arrested, I wasn’t surprised.  Excited, yes, but not surprised.  I figured it was only a matter of time.  I already knew that he was corrupt and highly unlikeable.  The only thing that really surprised me though was just HOW corrupt he is.  I didn’t think that even HE would sell a senate seat to the highest bidder.  I gave his intelligence more credit than that, but his arrogance took over his brain apparently.  This isn’t the only thing that this man has allegedly done.  No, his mishandling of the state goes back years, and has made him widely unpopular.  One of our pet peeves about him is that he refuses to live in the Governor’s Mansion in Springfield like every other governor, but instead runs the state out of his Chicago office.  What, Springfield isn’t good enough for him?  It’s good enough for me.  It’s good enough for the other 120,000 people that live here.  Just another case of a Chicago politician not relating to anyone that lives south of I-80.  He won’t even spend the night here during session.  Instead, he jets back and forth between Chicago and Springfield on the taxpayer’s dime.  Meanwhile, the state has gone virtually bankrupt, and his idea of balancing the budget is closing down state parks and tourist sites.  Sure, close down our history and recreation so you don’t have to live in Springfield.  OK, I know that there’s plenty of expenses other than that, but it’s still not fair.

Then there’s the history of corruption in Illinois politics.  Our last governor, George Ryan, is currently in prison for corruption.  2 other recent governors before that have served time.  And those are the people that actually won election, which doesn’t cover the number of candidates that dropped out of races before the election due to scandal.   Most of these people are out of Chicago.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I love Chicago.  I’m proud of it and love going there.  However, most people that are not from Illinois just don’t understand how this political Chicago machine is run.  Sure, there is the occasional decent candidate.  For the most part, though, it’s just a wide network of liberal frenemies who are only looking out for themselves.

My solution?  Make Chicago its own state or district, like Washington, D.C.  I think that sounds like a good idea.