Why no special election in Illinois?
Back on the Blagojevich saga, I see gunsandreligion offers the captivating suggestion that Rahm Emanuel might become the new Oliver North.
Steady now. But I have to say I am beginning to detect - in spite of my claim that it all adds up to nothing - that the Obama team is running out of sympathy slightly faster than is wise on this issue.
Behind the scenes, he is of being the moderate can-do, work-with-anyone man, but in front of the cameras (and the men and women with the pens and notebooks) his refusal to open up is .
Seems to me that the oddest subject for him to duck is the special election for the senate seat which the Republicans want and the Democrats seem not to - out of fear presumably that they might lose.
It would cost the state quite a bit to put it on, but it would cost Mr Obama nothing to call for it - and genuinely to want it - as by far the most democratic and un-corrupt solution to the problem, .
The fact is, though, that they are frightened of Republican Congressman Mark Kirk getting his party's nomination and winning the seat.
Mr Kirk is a moderate with liberal social views (full disclosure - we were at college together) and would re-energise not only the Republicans of Ilinois but also, I suspect, the mainstream of the wider party who would see non-Palin routes to victory.
That is why the special election (by-elections we call them in the UK) is unlikely to happen.
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