Word: governors
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Blagojevich is still campaigning. Despite his fall into the seventh circle of ignominy - perhaps you heard he was impeached as Illinois governor and faces federal corruption charges after allegedly auctioning off Barack Obama's empty U.S. Senate seat - Blagojevich is passing a crystalline afternoon pressing the flesh at a café near his home on Chicago's northwest side, eager to dispel the notion that he's a pariah. In part because Blagojevich is a very good politician, the reception is warmer than you might expect. He embraces an elderly supporter, quizzes a high school track team about its choice...
...course, not everyone is charmed. A honking car slows near our table, and when the window rolls down, a teenager shouts, "F___ you!" For just a moment, the former governor looks sheepish. "I thought that was [going to be] a positive one." (See TIME's photo-essay "The Remarkable World of Rod Blagojevich...
...handcuffs on Dec. 9, Blagojevich has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. As the days lurch toward a June 2010 trial, he's trying a new tack that happens to dovetail nicely with his love of the spotlight: fighting the allegations with sheer ubiquity. His new martyr-toned memoir, The Governor, and its attendant media blitz have been balletic exercises in the deflection of blame, and recent reports that he'll appear on the upcoming season of Donald Trump's Celebrity Apprentice suggest that he won't start offering apologies anytime soon...
During breaks, he jots notes on index cards and confers with his advisers: Josh Weiss, a baby-faced 25-year-old producer, and Dan Colla, a burly, affable childhood friend who is a dead ringer for the male model Fabio. After a sympathetic caller declares that the governor's staunchest political foes - including Illinois house speaker Mike Madigan, Governor Pat Quinn and state senate president John Cullerton - deserve to be pelted with rotten fruit, Blagojevich urges would-be assailants to aim for the head. Within a few mind-bending minutes, he slams Quinn's tax policies, speculates about the percentage...
State Rep. Lyla Berg, a former public school principal in Hawaii, said union, state education officials and the governor do not appear motivated to find another solution to the furloughs. At a recent briefing on the subject with the state lawmakers, it seemed that education and union officials were not interested in "assessing and correcting inefficiencies, waste, duplication and misuse of existing monies," said Berg, a Democrat and vice-chair of the Education Committee. "As a former teacher and middle school principal, I personally find the furlough alternative completely unacceptable," Berg said. "I hold all three parties responsible...