The Governor not governing

That was the episode that I hyped here a little yesterday. This report by CBS2's political reporter Mike Flannery aired on the 10 o'clock news last night discussed Blagojevich's work habits. The reports says specifially that...

Critics say his inaccessibility, his poor skills at building relationships and his lack of interest in details have made him an ineffective leader.

Now the governor is obviously not a very low key guy. If you read any political news stories he can fire up his charm for the cameras. He loves to campaign, it does seem however that he doesn't really like to govern. Odd isn't it governing comes with the territory does it now. Besides I should point on the governor was a legislator serving in the Illinois House where he worked with Michael J. Madigan the long time speaker of the Illinois House and he was a US Congressman immediately before he became governor. Could he still be acting like a legislator?

Well no one in the press is talking about that. Who knows if that's exactly what it is? But know this.

It's a wonder now that his health care proposal from earlier this year where he sought a GRT, the largest tax increase in state history, to pay for a universal health care program failed miserably. For this program he was forced to use his delegated power of the line item veto and then circumvent the legislative process to put money into his health care program. That GRT proposal fell so flat (107-0 ladies and gentleman) that it's almost a hardened pancake.

While the House was in session last night to consider his Chicago area transit bailout, the governor took a state plane from Springfield back to Chicago to watch a Blackhawks game (From the Sun-Times). That bill went down in flames in the house and I'm sure most of us wonders why. The next CTA doomsday is January 20th which give Illinois pols a little time, although, I wonder if the governor figures there's more money somewhere to buy some time. That can't be sustained for too long can it.

Anyway from this report last night I can't believe this...

Despite his problems with the legislature and his current low approval ratings in public opinion surveys, sources say he wants to run again in 2010. They say he could win a third term by raising even more than the $27 million he spent last time, and by campaigning on his taxpayer-subsidized health care. He's sidestepping the general assembly to expand the program on his own to 147,000 more people, and will worry about how to pay for it later.

"I'm gonna continue to do what I think is right, that's one of the good things about being governor," Blagojevich said.

I can't believe that the people of this state can be that gullible as they had been last year. Some people will say time will heal wounds but in this case time can't heal this one. Perhaps if the governor can quite possible switch gears on what he's been doing, that is govern and work with the legislature so that you know they can pass his proposals instead of voting them down, he probably won't need to say he's the guardian of health care and raise more money for his third term bid. Right now I'm not seeing it and I hope that in three years (a long time isn't it?) the voters will see thru his act.

Oh to be fair Rich Miller's Capitol Fax blog had a post about this report last night. In that post was a link to the live feed of last night's 10 O'Clock news and if you look at the comments the reaction was mixed. There were a few who liked it of course there were quite a few who called it lame. One could argue the govern's supporters (and I imagine there aren't many right now) could have written such comments. Still I guess one could say there wasn't much meat in it, but I suppose it depends on how you might view the governor. Do you view him as a person doing the people's work or is he just plain lazy?

Here are some related blog posts about this story this morning...
The gift that keeps on giving from The Capitol Fax Blog
Illinois' "governor who cannot govern" doesn't seem to even work from Marathon Pundit
EXPOSING BLAGOJEVICH: Is his approach an obstacle for Facebook popularity? from Illinoize
Gridlock Continues in Springfield from Second City Cop