Some Late Political Thanksgiving

Good ole Eric Krol in the Daily Herald, lists among others, these Illinois politicians and what they're thankful for this year (albeit one week late):

•State Treasurer-elect Alexi Giannoulias: thankful that his family contributed $3.1 million to pay for his campaign, including a late infusion of a $1 million loan by his mother.

•Tammy Duckworth: thankful that Blagojevich helped her ease the pain of a close congressional loss to Peter Roskam by awarding her a job that will pay more than $100,000 a year to oversee veterans issues in Illinois. In theory, the new gig gives her a platform from which to run again in 2008, if that’s her wish. On the other hand, the federal probe into serious allegations of “endemic hiring fraud” under Blagojevich likely involves the state’s veterans’ preference laws and whether they were skirted to pack more cronies into state jobs. Should anything erupt, Duckworth will have to choose whether to back Blagojevich or stick to the independent theme she talked about as a candidate.

•Illinois Senate President Emil Jones: thankful an unexpected wave of suburban Democratic victories gives him a veto-proof majority. Again, that could be a case of being careful what you’re thankful for, if enough members decide it’s safe to bolt the reservation.

•DuPage County State’s Attorney Joe Birkett: thankful his participation as Republican governor candidate Judy Baar Topinka’s running mate allowed him to erase his $700,000 campaign debt from his 2002 run for attorney general.

•Gov. Rod Blagojevich: strangely enough, it’s the same thing he had to be thankful for last year — all of that campaign cash he raised which allowed him to overcome his numerous scandal woes. The question looming now, of course, is whether he’ll still be thankful about how all that campaign money was raised a year from now, in light of the “gathering storm” of a federal probe.

The rest of us are just thankful that the weather is so bad there will be no sessions in Spendfield today.