I apparently erred when I said Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich had a 6% approval rating. Last time it was measured, it was 4%.
How does a man get that low? Did Blagojevich bitchslap a nun and we didn't hear about it out here? George W. Bush did everything wrong and on a much larger, "getting people killed" scale and even he never made single digits. And if historians of the future get to wondering how a man who became as unpopular as Bush ever won a second term — meaning enough voters liked him enough to re-elect — what will they make of Blagojevich, who's also in his second term?
Here in California, Arnold Schwarzenegger is fiercely replicating all the financial disasters that he condemned when they were the handiwork of Gray Davis, the recalled governor who was his predecessor. And even Arnold's only down to something like 36% approval. He couldn't get it down to 4% if he announced he was making Kindergarten Cop II.
The immediate problem in Illinois is that Blagojevich is duty-bound to appoint someone to fill out the rest of Barack Obama's senate term…but of course, anyone he appoints will be under a cloud of suspicion and might not be seated in the senate just because he was Blagojevich's pick. The Illinois legislature is talking about taking the choice away from the governor and calling a special election which will cost $50 million plus whatever the aspirants spend to campaign in it. Blagojevich could do the honorable and wise thing by instead announcing that the legislature should just vote to pick a successor and he'll recuse himself from the decision and appoint whoever they recommend. He has nothing to lose doing that and it would show that he isn't totally immoral and foolish. It might even get his approval rating up to 5%.