Republicans struggle to tar Obama with Blagojevich brush

Despite calls to resign from across the political spectrum, Rod Blagojevich, the Illinois governor accused of trying to 'sell' Barack Obama's Senate seat - has said that he has no plans to resign yet and maintains he is innocent. He might as well do so according to USA Today, which reports that Blagojevich has not got many friends to lose.

The 52-year-old has never been a popular governor with Chicago citizens - who gave him a job approval rating of 13 per cent in November - or fellow American politicians who have variously described him as "arrogant", "reckless", "bad to the bone" and "cuckoo" from their run-ins with Blagojevich before the recent scandal erupted.

Though there is still no serious suggestion that Obama is guilty of any wrongdoing, the President-elect has come under fire from Republicans and the media for failing to fully disclose how much contact he or his representatives had with Blagojevich over his Senate replacement.

Despite Obama's claim that he was "confident that no representatives" of his had had any dialogue with Blagojevich about the seat, the Chicago Tribune reports that Rahm Emanuel, another Chicago politician and Obama's pick for White House Chief of Staff, had several conversations with both Blagojevich and John Harris - Blagojevich's colleague who has resigned from his state post because of the accusations - regarding the Senate seat.

Obama appears to be cruising through the scandal unscathed though. On FiveThirtyEight, the respected polling site, Nate Silver reports that "Obama's approval ratings remain pristine". That news is largely because Obama has always tried to distance himself from Blagojevich in any way possible. "The two men have not talked for more than a year," says Eli Saslow on the Washington Post, "save for a requisite handshake at a funeral or public event." Saslow also notes that Blagojevich never campaigned with Obama, turned up late to the Democratic party convention and didn't even show up at Obama's victory celebrations in Chicago's Grant Park.

"Even though they often occupied the same political space, Obama and Blagojevich never warmed to each other," says Saslow, and the pair often acted "like rivals". Though the scandal has reminded America that Obama's political background is in corrupt Chicago, Abner Mikva, one of Obama's political advisors, has said: "You don't get through Chicago like Barack Obama did unless you know how to avoid people like that [Blagojevich]." And as Saslow observes: "About all Blagojevich and Obama shared was searing ambition."

However, the Republican National Committee (RNC) has released a video today (below) titled 'Questions Still Remain' which attempts to tie Obama to Blagojevich and accuses the President-elect and his transition team of not being transparent enough about the scandal.

"More of the same feckless fingerpointing is exactly what Barack Obama should expect from the Republicans," says Joe Conason on Salon. "Having nothing to sustain them for the moment except a whiff of Democratic scandal, they can hardly help themselves. They will persist in their partisan efforts to undermine the new president." For Conason, the storm kicked up by conservatives marks an unwelcome return to 'the Clinton rules' where "mere facts need not get in the way of a juicy scandal".

FIRST POSTED DECEMBER 15, 2008