A decade ago, I was serving as the campaign manager for a successful Chicagoland businessman who was running for the Republican nomination for the governorship.  Had we bested the two politicians and the Chicago establishment businessman who opposed us in the primary, we would have taken on Rod Blagojevich, the incumbent governor who wound up as a national laughing stock before he wound up in a federal penitentiary for corruption.  Short years before, I had helped lead the intra-party revolt against a corrupt Republican governor, George Ryan.  In Illinois, politics is a rough and tumble, bare knuckled and mostly corrupt business.

As we surged ahead of the establishment businessman and the downstate politician, we closed the gap with the veteran Cook County politician, a statewide Constitutional officer who ran as the favorite of the bipartisan forces of the status quo.  My candidate told me that if we were successful, he would want me to serve as his...

>> Read more about Life took another direction.