The Day Nixon Won the Presidency

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There haven't been many cliffhangers in presidential politics, and one of the most interesting, from the perspective of an historian, has to be the one that occurred 45 years ago today.

It was the last truly paper–thin popular vote margin in a presidential election in the 20th century, and it was the last time for nearly 40 years that voter turnout in a national election exceeded 60% — in spite of the fact that the voting age was lowered to 18 before the next presidential election.

And, if the outcome had been different, the nation might have been spared the Watergate scandal that consumed the Richard Nixon presidency.

But the Democrats' nominee, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, had to win the grudging acceptance of those who had supported antiwar candidate Gene McCarthy in the primaries. The war influenced most voters that year, either directly or indirectly, and McCarthy's supporters didn't completely trust Humphrey because of his role in the Johnson administration.

Gradually, Humphrey had been winning them over that fall; Democrats who had supported McCarthy and Bobby Kennedy earlier in the year apparently began to realize that, like it or not, the choice was between Humphrey and Nixon, the man they had been demonizing for a couple of decades. About two weeks before the election, when Humphrey announced in Salt Lake City that he would pull the plug on the bombing in southeast Asia as "an acceptable risk for peace," the momentum was on his side.

"Up until Salt Lake City," wrote historian Theodore White, "the position of the Democrats had been that any bombing halt in Vietnam must be coupled with reciprocity on the part of the enemy. Now, in a three–point program, Humphrey declared that he would risk a complete bombing halt in the interests of peace, and then see what response might develop, reserving the right to resume bombing if no such response was clear."

The impact on the polls was immediate. Gallup reported that Humphrey had cut Nixon's lead in half.

Then, less than a week before the election, McCarthy ("who had been pouting on the Riviera" since losing the nomination to Humphrey, wrote historian William Manchester) announced his support for Humphrey — and, at that point, wrote Manchester, "Humphrey was at the top of his form; Nixon had begun to sound uncannily like Thomas E. Dewey."

The late Humphrey surge would have changed the outcome, many people argued, if the campaign had gone on for a day or two more — and, in fact, the Democrats had no one but themselves to blame for that. The Democratic National Committee decided to postpone the Chicago convention until the end of August to coincide with the birthday of President Lyndon Johnson.

At the time, it was the latest start for a national convention since the Civil War more than a century earlier — and the change cost Democrats valuable campaign time that could have altered the outcome of the general election.

(It is worth noting that LBJ was much more popular when that decision was made than he was when the convention was held.)

In hindsight, the whole election really hinged on the outcomes in three states — California, Illinois and Ohio. Nixon carried them all by relatively close margins. If Humphrey had carried all three, he would have been elected president.

And if Humphrey had carried any two of those three — or California alone — the independent candidacy of George Wallace would have accomplished its objective of forcing the election into the House of Representatives — where Wallace, who had been fading in the polls that autumn and must have been aware that he could not possibly win, could play the role of kingmaker.

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Nixon, a native Californian, never really seemed likely to lose his home state (although the Republican ticket did lose the home state of the vice presidential nominee, Spiro Agnew). Oh, sure, some major party presidential nominees had lost their home states over the years — Democrat Adlai Stevenson even managed to do it twice — and, if that had happened in 1968, Nixon would not have won in the Electoral College (and, given his final popular vote margins in both California and the nation as a whole, he might not have won the popular vote, either).

But, contrary to what modern political observers may think of California's electoral tendencies, the fact was that, in 1968, the state had voted Republican in three of the previous four presidential elections, and it had never rejected Nixon in a national campaign.

Realistically, California was off the table.

But if Humphrey could have won about 67,000 votes from Nixon in Illinois and about 45,000 votes from Nixon in Ohio, he could have prevented Nixon from receiving enough electoral votes to be elected. And if he had carried both of those states, along with California, he would have won the election outright.

That kind of scenario (or something like it) seemed like a real possibility on this day in 1968 — even moreso after midnight, when all three states (along with Missouri and, for a time, Texas) remained too close to call.

Humphrey and Nixon were even with each other in the polls heading into Election Day, and many states remained too close to call well into that evening — and the early morning hours of the next day. In fact, it was not until the next morning that the TV networks called the election for Nixon — and, even after they did that, some states stayed too close to call for awhile.

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My memory of those days is vague, owing primarily to my youth. But one memory stands out.

As I have written here before, I grew up within 350 miles of my grandparents. It wasn't all interstate in 1968, but my family still managed to visit my grandparents frequently. My father taught at a local college, which did not have summer sessions in those days, and my mother stayed at home until she re–entered the workforce in the mid–'70s so my family typically made two, even three trips to visit the grandparents in the summers — in addition to trips we usually made at Christmas and sometimes at Thanksgiving or during spring break.

I loved my grandparents and wanted to please them, and I'm sure I must have heard them talking about the election that summer. My mother's parents, with whom we always stayed when we visited Dallas, were Nixon supporters. My father's mother was a Democrat, and I am sure she supported Humphrey, but my maternal grandparents spent more time with me and had more influence on me.

Anyway, I must have heard them speaking of Nixon that summer. My grandfather could be — shall we say? — loquacious on certain topics, one of which was politics. My best guess is that I must have boldly asserted, at some point, that Nixon would win — and, then, as children will, I forgot about the conversation.

Until a day or two after the election.

It was then that I received the first telegram I had received in my then–brief life. It was from my grandparents and a couple of their friends (who must have been there when I made my prediction) congratulating me.

I wish I could say I still have that telegram, but I don't. As nearly as I can remember, it said something like this: "Congratulations on your prediction! We're all proud of you!"

At that point in my life, I knew nothing about politics, but I guess my grandparents' praise made me feel like I was some sort of prodigy, that I was destined to be some kind of political historian.

Maybe I was. After all, I still enjoy analyzing election returns, and I still like to make predictions.

I must confess, however, that those predictions involve considerably more thought and research than the one I made in 1968.

Charles Percy and the Old GOP

Death is unavoidable. What is uncertain is when each of us will die.

Sometimes, given the way an individual lived his or her life, the timing of death may be seen as ironic. So it is, I think, with the death of Charles Percy, a former Republican senator from Illinois.

If you are too young to remember Percy, you may be inclined to think, when I say that he was a Republican, that he was a Tea Party type, like Michele Bachmann and some other prominent Republicans from the Midwest. But, in fact, Percy was a liberal Republican (aka a Rockefeller Republican) in the tradition of Nelson Rockefeller and Teddy Roosevelt.

(Percy was a Rockefeller Republican who actually supported Rockefeller. He backed Rocky's unsuccessful bid for the presidency in 1968.)

It's important to understand that, within the Republican Party, liberal really meant left of center in Rockefeller's and Roosevelt's days — not extreme left. Rockefeller Republicans opposed communism, promoted American business interests in foreign markets, advocated a strong defense, rejected socialism and redistribution of wealth, just like the other members of their party, but they supported regulatory measures that nearly all 21st–century Republicans simply would never tolerate, and they were advocates of things like federal funding for environmental protection, health care and higher education.

Actually, many Republicans in those days — but especially the Rockefeller Republicans — were progressive on social issues like civil rights, even moreso than their Democratic counterparts, many of whom held office in the South (and would be more comfortable in today's Republican Party than the Democrat).

Without a doubt, that was part of the legacy of the party's first nationally elected president, Abraham Lincoln, and the posture it had taken against slavery.

There was a time in fairly recent American history when the Rockefeller Republicans wielded considerable influence within their party. Their preference didn't always win the presidential nomination, but he was usually competitive if he wasn't successful.

Things really began to shift, I suppose, when Dwight Eisenhower was nominated for president and spoke of "modern Republicanism," which meant a movement toward the center. And, although they nominated essentially political moderates like Richard Nixon (who created the Environmental Protection Agency) and Gerald Ford (who actually chose Rockefeller to be his vice president — much to the dismay, I might add, of the Republicans of that time) in the 1960s and 1970s, Republicans continued to move to the right, nominating Ronald Reagan twice, the two Bushes twice each and Bob Dole once.

In 2008, of course, many Republicans complained that their standard bearer, John McCain, was not a true conservative — but he was much more conservative than many of the Republicans who were on the political scene half a century earlier.

Percy came along at the back end of the Rockefeller Republican era, I suppose. He was something of a wunderkind — president of Bell & Howell before the age of 30, elected to the U.S. Senate at the age of 47.

He was encouraged to enter politics by Eisenhower and narrowly lost his first bid for office when he ran against Illinois' incumbent governor in 1964. A political novice, Percy found that he had to make certain compromises if he hoped to be successful and hesitantly endorsed the Republican standard bearer of that year, Barry Goldwater.

The next election year, 1966, was, by historical standards, clearly a Republican year, and, although Percy faced another incumbent when he ran for the Senate, he won. Perhaps the lessons he had learned in '64 paid off; perhaps he just benefited, as many Republicans did, from a backlash against Democrats. But he was re–elected in 1972 and 1978, losing his bid for a fourth term in 1984 even though a Republican president was re–elected in a landslide.

Today, you simply don't hear someone called a liberal Republican. Even those who would have qualified — albeit barely — as liberal Republicans in Percy's day won't admit to it. They prefer to be called moderate Republicans — but, even under that banner, many find themselves on the defensive against the more extreme factions of their party.

They are a vanishing breed although you do still find some in places where they once thrived — primarily in New England, the Northeast, Midwest and West Coast. As the modern Republican Party swung farther to the right, though, most of the Rockefeller Republicans became Democrats or independents.

Which brings me to the ironic aspect of Percy's death.

The fact that he died today at the age of 91 could hardly be considered surprising, but I do find the timing of his death to be, as I say, ironic. No other word seems appropriate to me.

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You see, yesterday was the 35th anniversary of Rockefeller's one–finger salute to hecklers at a campaign stop in Binghamton, N.Y.

(And today, as I observed earlier, is the 15th anniversary of the death of Spiro Agnew, Nixon's first vice president.

(In an unrelated irony, tomorrow will be the 45th anniversary of the still–unsolved murder of one of Percy's daughters.)

In a way, I guess, that gesture foreshadowed the growing antagonism and, ultimately, truly unavoidable split between the conservatives and the Rockefeller Republicans.

Someone had to go. That tent just wasn't big enough for both of them, and, in hindsight, Rockefeller's gesture can be seen as a rather eloquent message to those who had seized the controls.

The Results From Illinois

Following yesterday's Illinois primaries, we now know the major–party nominees who will be competing for the U.S. Senate seat that was held, briefly, by Barack Obama.

Republicans overwhelmingly chose Rep. Mark Kirk of the 10th District, which is a Democratic–leaning district that gave Obama more than three–fifths of its votes in 2008. He will be opposed by Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, who won the Democratic primary in less spectacular fashion (meaning he did not receive a majority of the vote).

Perhaps Giannoulias will keep the seat in Democratic hands, where it has been for all but six of the last 40 years. Recent polls suggest that he may be in a good position to do so. Public Policy Polling reported last week that he leads Kirk by eight points. The same poll also suggested he held narrow leads over his Democratic challengers. As it turned out, his margins were a bit higher than the poll claimed.

PPP's results, though, may be suspect, given the fact that it has a reputation for leaning to the Democratic side. So it may be useful to review the results of other polls, like Rasmussen Reports, which has been regarded, in recent years, as one of the most accurate polls around. In December, Rasmussen reported that Giannoulias' lead was only three points.

The same poll, incidentally, showed virtually no difference (given that the margin of error was plus or minus 4½ points) between the two candidates when respondents were asked if their impressions were very favorable, somewhat favorable, somewhat unfavorable or very unfavorable.

The races for the gubernatorial nominations were much closer and, at this point, have not been settled. Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn, who became governor when Rod Blagojevich was removed from office last year, leads his challenger by a little more than 7,000 votes. On the Republican side, state Sen. Bill Brady leads a field of seven, but he leads his nearest challenger, state Sen. Kirk Dillard, by about 750 votes. The candidate who is currently third trails Brady by about 8,400 votes.

Once all the ballots have been counted, the battle may turn out to be between someone other than Quinn and Brady. But, if their leads hold up, that would contradict Rasmussen's findings, which were that Quinn's challenger, Dan Hynes, led the governor by six points and Brady was a distant fourth on the Republican side.

Were there any lessons to be learned? Nothing major that I know of. I don't know of any House incumbents who were running for re–election but were denied their party's nomination.

The Start of the Election Season

I'll bet you thought the election in Massachusetts was the first election of the 2010 election cycle.

Well, it was — and it wasn't.

Clearly, it is beyond dispute that the election in Massachusetts was the first time voters went to the polls in this calendar year.

But that was a special election. It wouldn't have been held if Edward Kennedy had not died. He was re–elected to a six–year term in 2006. Scott Brown was only elected to serve the final three years of the term.

Brown's victory was — arguably — a considerable setback for the Democrats, considering that Republicans won a Senate seat from Massachusetts for the first time in nearly 40 years. Barack Obama and the Democrats were justified in looking for lessons in the results.

Voters in Massachusetts will return to the polls later this year. At the scheduled time, Democrats and Republicans will choose their nominees for governor and other statewide offices, and party primaries will resolve any contested races for the nominations in the congressional districts as well.

But that isn't where the 2010 election cycle begins.

Halfway across the North American continent today, the state of Illinois is holding the first regularly scheduled primaries of 2010.

The voters in the Land of Lincoln will be choosing the nominees for governor and for Obama's former U.S. Senate seat. Gov. Pat Quinn, the former lieutenant governor who succeeded Gov. Rod Blagojevich when he was removed from office, apparently faces a tough challenge in his quest for a full term. Obama's old seat is open since the man who was appointed to replace him, Roland Burris, is not seeking a full term.

Unless Quinn loses, I doubt that much will be determined in today's primaries. Turnout figures may tell us a few things about the state of the political mind in Illinois, about the relative enthusiasm each party's base has or doesn't have, but unless there is a clear indication of an anti–incumbent movement within either party that is sufficient to deny an incumbent his/her party's nomination, Illinois will be of more interest in the general election.

The same could be said, really, of the other states, but Illinois holds a special distinction because it is the adult home of the president, the place where he launched his political career.

Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun–Times observes that the general election campaign "will be played out on a national stage," and so it shall. But today's races do not match party against party.

Massachusetts gave both Democrats and Republicans an early, regionalized taste of the national mood. From now until November, they will have to gather whatever information they can from primary turnout and exit polls.

Other clues can be found in public opinion polls, although some have proven more reliable than others over the years. Public Policy Polling, a Democratic Party–leaning group whose neutrality has been under fire in recent years, reports that Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., trails Republican Rep. John Boozman by 22 points.

PPP declared Boozman the front runner, even though he hasn't won his party's nomination yet, and, after polling several hypothetical matchups, PPP concluded, "It's going to be a tough year for Democrats in Arkansas. ... Lincoln or no Lincoln this is going to be a very tough hold for Democrats."

Other polls are reporting similar findings in other states. So Obama and the Democrats are right to be worried in the aftermath of Massachusetts.

My advice would be to pay particular attention to the demographic groups that are considered likely voters. Many of the demographic groups that lifted Obama to the Oval Office in 2008 — i.e., the young and the minorities — can't be counted upon because they have reputations for not participating.

And one of the lessons in Massachusetts clearly was that, without Obama at the top of the ballot, those groups are not motivated to participate in large numbers.

Even when Obama himself comes to the state to make a personal appeal for votes.

Public opinion polls clearly indicate that Obama remains personally popular, in Massachusetts and elsewhere. But personal popularity is not the same thing as job approval. Nor, apparently, is it easily transferable — at least not to an extent that could have drawn more young voters, more minority voters, more liberal voters to the polls and, in the process, rescued Martha Coakley's campaign. Those voters did not show up.

And decisions — as they liked to say on The West Wing — are made by those who show up.

A Deadly Week

It's only Wednesday, and it's already been a deadly week.

And it's left many people looking for rational answers for irrational acts.

The week began with the fatal shooting of a Baptist minister during Sunday church service in Maryville, Ill. Terry J. Sedlacek, the 27-year-old man who has been charged with the shooting, may have planned to shoot himself, but the gun jammed. He pulled out a knife and used it on church members who sought to subdue him. In the process, he suffered knife wounds, possibly in an attempt to kill himself.

It has been suggested that, previously, Sedlacek exhibited erratic behavior that has been attributed to Lyme disease, but an expert in Lyme disease at Yale said, "Lyme disease doesn't cause people to shoot people."

Then, on Tuesday, Michael McLendon, 28, shot and killed 10 people, including his mother and other members of his family, in southern Alabama. Then he turned the weapon on himself.

McLendon apparently quit his job last week, but there has been no indication that I am aware of that it had any bearing on his actions yesterday.

And, today, in Winnenden, Germany, 17-year-old Tim Kretschmer shot and killed at least 15 people at a school where he once was a student.

At this writing, authorities are still sorting through the carnage in Germany, and more victims may yet die, but the rapid response of the police "means they prevented further escalation of events," said the region's interior minister.

There really isn't much more to say in the aftermath of these events. Those who favor gun control and those who oppose it will find ways to spin these tragedies to support their positions.

I just hope the survivors find peace and comfort wherever they can — even though it is hard to think of anything comforting to say about shootings that kill a minister during a Sunday worship service or a mother in her own home or grandparents sitting on their porch or more than a dozen young people in classrooms with pens in their hands.

That will be the unenviable task of those who must conduct the funeral services.

Politics As Usual No More

I hope today signals that the era of politics as usual has ended.

• In Illinois, not a single member of the Illinois state senate voted against removing Gov. Rod Blagojevich from office — even though Blagojevich made a lengthy speech defending himself.
  
  Moments later, the state senate took it a step further, voting unanimously to prevent Blagojevich from ever holding political office in Illinois again. If he's going to practice his smarmy style of politics in the future, it will have to be in another state.
  
  Well, he can't say he wasn't warned. Seth Meyers told Blagojevich in a "Saturday Night Live" skit last month, "Illinois politicians are saying you should resign. And when Illinois politicians think you're too corrupt ... YOU'RE TOO CORRUPT!"
  
  Blagojevich could have saved the taxpayers of his state a lot of anxiety and money if he had followed Meyers' advice — instead of pursuing his vain hope of staying in office.
  
  Well, if it's any consolation to the folks in Illinois, Blagojevich is history now.


• President Obama scolded Wall Street bankers for giving themselves billions in bonuses. Obama called it "the height of irresponsibility" — as well he should.
  
  The tally for the bonuses exceeds $18 billion. Talk about a golden parachute.
  
  And now, finally ...


• In the U.S. Senate, Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky lamented the fact that the GOP is becoming irrelevant.
  
  "We're all concerned about the fact that the very wealthy and the very poor, the most and least educated, and a majority of minority voters, seem to have more or less stopped paying attention to us," McConnell said. "And we should be concerned that, as a result of all this, the Republican Party seems to be slipping into a position of being more of a regional party than a national one."
  
  Well, Mitch, it might not have come to this if you folks had done your jobs. But you might still be able to salvage at least a shred of respect if you'll step up to the plate and support the stimulus package when it comes to the Senate.
  
  Yeah, right. Like that's going to happen.

Burris Takes Senate Oath

Roland Burris was sworn in as Barack Obama's replacement in the U.S. Senate today.

Of course, the fact that Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's pick has been seated does not mean the governor is out of the woods yet. The stage is still set for his Illinois Senate trial later this month.

I guess that leaves only the Minnesota Senate seat to be accounted for.

The latest I've heard on that is that the dispute will extend well into next month if Sen. Norm Coleman's proposal for his lawsuit to be conducted in stages is accepted.

Al Franken was supposed to submit his timeline today. As of this writing, I've seen no indication that he has done so.

Illinois House Votes to Impeach Blagojevich

I guess it's appropriate that Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was impeached by the Illinois House today. The vote was nearly unanimous — 114-1.

Rep. Milt Patterson of Chicago was the only member of the House to vote against the resolution.

Today happens to be the 96th anniversary of the birth of Richard Nixon — who managed to avoid impeachment and conviction by resigning the presidency in 1974.

Blagojevich's trial will be one of the items of business the Illinois Senate will take up after it convenes next week. There are 59 members of the Illinois Senate. Forty are needed to convict the governor and remove him from office.

In spite of a lengthy history of corrupt politics, Illinois has never impeached a governor before.

Meanwhile, many Americans can't be blamed if they're more concerned about their own job prospects than Blagojevich's. The latest job report says 2.6 million jobs were lost in 2008, making it the worst year for jobs since the end of World War II.

The unemployment rate is 7.2%. That's the highest rate since January 1993, which is when George H.W. Bush was replaced as president by Bill Clinton.

Perhaps Blagojevich will join the ranks of the unemployed before long.

Dangling Senate Seats

The new Congress begins its business tomorrow, but there won't be a full house in the Senate. There are still a few vacancies to fill.

• In Minnesota, the state Canvassing Board certified comedian Al Franken as the winner of the hotly contested Senate race against incumbent Norm Coleman.
  
  But Coleman's attorneys pledged to challenge the certification in court.
  
  "Minnesota law prohibits the state from issuing a certificate of election until such a court case is resolved," report Pat Doyle and Patricia Lopez of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, "which ... leaves Minnesota with a single senator."
  
  Even so, writes Chris Cillizza in the Washington Post, the window is closing on Coleman.
  
  Several actors have been candidates for office in California, and some of them have gone on to win — including, notably, a future president.
  
  But Minnesota, which elected a wrestler as its governor a decade ago and currently has a former football player serving as its chief justice, may be the champion (per capita) at electing the most nontraditional candidates to high-profile positions.
  
  Franken's margin of victory was 225 votes.


• Roland Burris, who has been chosen by Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich to replace Barack Obama, continues to run into problems. The governor's acting chief of staff took Burris' nomination certificate to the Senate today, but it was rejected by the secretary of the Senate.
  
  Such a certificate is supposed to be signed by Illinois' governor and its secretary of state. But the Illinois secretary of state refused to sign it, apparently because he is among the growing number of Illinois politicians who contend that Blagojevich is unfit to serve.
  
  It appears that Burris and the governor must hope that the Illinois Supreme Court will force the secretary of state to sign the document.
  
  I've advocated giving Burris an opportunity to show what he can do, but things seem to be getting out of hand.
  
  "I feel I am the solution to the problem for the people of Illinois," Burris says.
  
  According to CBS News, "[T]he Lord put his hands on the governor and said, 'This is the person that has to go to Washington,' and that appointment is legal," Burris said to supporters at a Chicago church yesterday. "That is all there is."
  
  Dear Diary ...


• In New York, where Gov. David Paterson must nominate the successor for Hillary Clinton, Senate hopeful Caroline Kennedy seems to be criticized by everyone for her unfortunate, repeated use of the phrase "you know," which doesn't seem to strike many observers as dignified enough — or eloquent enough — for a Kennedy.
  
  The latest to contribute his two cents' worth is Ben McGrath of the New Yorker. He offers something of a defense for Kennedy and some suggestions for turning the situation to her advantage.
  
  You know?

Give Him a Chance

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"Allies describe Burris — the first black politician to win statewide office in Illinois — as a careful leader whose banking background made him more comfortable crunching numbers than delivering charismatic speeches from a lectern."

USA Today

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In spite of the problems he's been having lately, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich went ahead and named his choice to replace Barack Obama in the Senate — attorney Roland Burris, the first black to win statewide office in Illinois.

But Burris may be denied the seat, according to Politico.com, which is reporting that Majority Leader Harry Reid will not seat Burris.

According to a statement from Reid, "There is much work to do and a lot at stake. It is thus critical that Illinois and every other state have two seated Senators without delay."

But Reid suggests that the fastest way for Illinois to fill the vacancy to everyone's satisfaction is for Blagojevich to resign and permit "his successor [to] appoint someone who we will seat."

Blagojevich has indicated repeatedly that he will not resign. And impeachment can take a long time. Blagojevich and his attorneys seem determined to settle in for a protracted battle, to fight every charge and contest every witness.

If Illinois has to wait until the matter is resolved before the Senate seat is filled, the voters might as well be prepared to wait until after the next election before they have two senators again.

There are only two years left on the term. Whoever occupies the seat, the voters will have their say in 2010.

Give him a chance.

Is Blago Gonna Go?

Illinois officials, including the state's attorney general, are saying today that Gov. Rod Blagojevich is going to make an announcement on Monday, and some are speculating that he will step down — or at least "step aside."

That's how Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan put it on "Meet the Press."

"I don't know if that means he will resign or take another option that is provided under the Illinois constitution," she said, explaining that the governor could "voluntarily recognize that there is a serious impediment to his ability to carry out his duties, and therefore temporarily remove himself."

It doesn't seem to me that a "temporary" solution is what Illinois officials want — never mind what Blagojevich wants.

While they've been trying to sort out that mess in Illinois, apparently the writers at "Saturday Night Live" have already figured it out.

I must admit that I didn't watch the show last night. But it apparently opened with a scathingly funny parody of the Blagojeviches and a "Weekend Update" routine called "Really!" — in which Amy Poehler, in what was apparently her final show, and Seth Meyers took the governor to task on everything.

"You should resign," Meyers said. "Even Illinois politicians are saying you should resign, and when Illinois politicians think you're too corrupt, you're too corrupt."

As Phil Rosenthal observes in the Chicago Tribune, "Now we know how they feel in Wasilla, Alaska."

I guess the next step would be to empathize with Whittier, Calif.

On Being a Good Neighbor

In a city as large as Chicago, there are many congressional districts.

Illinois' 14th District is one of those districts. For 20 years, from 1987 until Nov. 26, 2007, Republican Dennis Hastert represented the 14th. He was speaker of the House from 1999 to 2007 and was forced to relinquish his post after the Democrats captured the majority in the House in the 2006 election.

Hastert had announced his intention to retire after this term, but when the party lost its majority and Hastert gave up the speaker's post, he appeared to lose whatever joy he derived from serving in the House, and he announced his resignation in November of last year.

A special election was held in the district in March, with Democrat Bill Foster (who was endorsed by the Chicago Tribune) defeating Republican Jim Oberweis (who was endorsed by the Chicago Sun-Times), 52.5% to 47.5% (which was a margin of about 5,000 votes).

Illinois' 14th slithers along the northern part of the state, straddling an imaginary line between the boundary of the city of Chicago with its metropolitan, ethnically diverse voters and the more rural — and more rustic — blue-collar, downstate voters of Illinois.

Foster and Oberweis will be facing each other in a rematch in November. Larry Sabato writes that the district "leans Democratic" right now, but there are some questions that remain to be asked:

"Was it only a battle between the flawed candidate (Oberweis) and a political outsider without external import? Was Oberweis a casualty of a contentious primary ... or his own political shortcomings? ... Was this only an isolated incident or a sign of things to come for Congressional Republicans in the fall?"

I expect John McCain to make an appearance for Oberweis. McCain campaigned for Oberweis during the special election.

But if Obama is a good neighbor (even one who lives in one of the ritzier parts of Chicago), he'll make an appearance or two on behalf of Foster.

Whoever wins the presidency will need allies in Congress. If Obama occupies the White House, it would be helpful if some of his allies were from his home state.

And Foster's margin in the special election was close enough (especially when one considers that less than one-quarter of the district's voters bothered to participate in March) to warrant a little political attention from the presidential nominee.