2012 Blog RE: Obama-Blago early years
Deep State Chicago Eight: Blagojevich, Obama, Emanuel, Axelrod, Burris, Rezko, Mell, & Jones
Obama also drew on his political patron, senate president Emil Jones Jr., arguably the most powerful black politician in Illinois at the time. After the Democrats swept into power and Jones took the reins of the state senate, Obama went to see him. “He said to me, ‘You got a lot of power now,’” recalls Jones. “I said to Barack, ‘What kind of power do you think I have?’ He said, ‘You have the power to make a United States senator.’ And I said, ‘That sounds good. Do you know of anybody I can make?’ He said, ‘Me.’”
Jones threw his support to Obama for the Senate race, and since Jones and the governor were politically close, the senate president became the proxy between Blagojevich and Obama. With Jones’s help, Obama found real success for the two years that he was in the state legislature and Blagojevich was governor. During that time, Obama sponsored nearly 800 bills and Blagojevich signed more than 280 into law, by the Tribune’s count. By contrast, Obama’s biographer, David Mendell, says that Obama introduced, or had a hand in sponsoring, 116 bills in his first three years in Springfield, and 25 were signed into law.
Still, Obama suffered occasional run-ins with the Blagojevich team. In early 2004, as Obama maneuvered to pass a controversial measure that required police to tape homicide interrogations, he learned at the last minute that Blagojevich’s office was negotiating changes to the bill with the Fraternal Order of Police. Obama called the governor’s office and complained to a Blagojevich aide, who raised the concerns to Bradley Tusk, then the deputy governor. “You can tell Barack that we do the politics in this office,” barked Tusk, according to the second former Blagojevich aide, who witnessed the encounter. “He’s just a law-school professor! If he wants to pass this bill—or go anywhere in politics—he’s gotta work with us!” (Tusk, now the campaign manager for New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg, did not return messages seeking comment.)
As two ambitious politicians, Obama and Blagojevich occasionally vied to claim credit for the state’s progressive agenda. “That is where the rivalry between Rod and Barack really started—who’s getting credit for all of this?” says Giangreco. At a signing ceremony for criminal-justice reforms—including Obama’s measures to tape interrogations and to curb racial profiling—Jim Cauley recalls that Blagojevich barely acknowledged Obama’s contribution. “Barack was like, ‘Damn, I did that bill and that’s the treatment I get,’” Cauley says. At the conclusion of the event, Obama started working the room, talking to any reporter he could corral. “[Obama] saw an opportunity to get on Chicago TV and Rod was trying to elbow us into the corner,” Cauley says.
https://politicalvelcraft.org/2012/07/07/deep-state-chicago-eight-blagojevich-obama-emanuel-axelrod-burris-rezko-mell-jones/