Less than 14 months ago, Illinois Democrats were looking at a smooth road toward retaining total power in the next election.
Now, instead of entrenched incumbents in the state's two top offices, the Illinois Democratic Party goes into the campaign season with an unelected governor and an open Senate seat. The situation has spawned the rare spectacle of a sprawling primary fight within the ruling party.
"Rod Blagojevich isn't all of it by any stretch, but he's certainly some of it," Chris Mooney, professor of political science at UIS, said of the Democrats' lost cohesion.
Mooney's comments were featured in a January 27, 2010, article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Download a PDF of the article:
20100127-STLPostDispatch-Democrats.pdf
