Your panel tonight seemed bemused -- as only insiders dare be -- on how any voter today could say good things about our former governor. Gosh! could it be that your experts spend so much time in press rooms and talking to politicians and other people-who-matter-about-everything-important that they have forgotten or dismissed how as governor Rod Blagojevich insisted on legislation and programs to improve the health of our children? Do they not care that while in most other states, facing hard fiscal choices, the health of their children is not improving, whereas in fiscally desperate Illinois it is? Is that not worthy of notice and gratitude? If they maintain they do care and are grateful, why was that story barely mentioned this week and not at all during the "week in review"? Should we not continually thank, at least, that one politician who stared down the powerful to care for our children? Or, again, have your panelists forgotten that the politicians who are now giving tax breaks to CME and Sears -- both, you suggest, are worthy and needful of great fiscal compassion -- while the same legislature ended the program to provide free access for our elderly poor on our public mass transit systems (another program instituted by our now officially disgraced former governor)?

As a pastor (now retired) serving parishes in Chicago for over 40 years, I know many seniors (even out here in affluent suburbia) who did (and still do) need that free senior pass. I also know families that desperately need medical access for their children but have no resources to get such without help. They and others who continue to support our former governor are not necessarily turning a blind eye or a closed mind, to the official truth now ratified by our courts. They just cannot help but remember the politician who cared enough to work on their behalf from time to time, and for that they are grateful.

Not a lawyer, WHY can't Campaigns have a Legally Set Budget that CAN NOT be exceeded-- would Show if Candidate CAN live inside a BUDGET!!!!! Fund Raising should NOT be a Part/FULL - time "job"for Elected officials and their associates!!!
Lobbyists' power would be limited, deep-pocketed candidates would be limited and Incumbents would BE on a Level field with neo-phytes running for Office!!!