Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan rearranged her campaign schedule at the last minute on Tuesday at the request of the leader of the free world. The request was that she travel to downstate Quincy, where the president was speaking Wednesday at a rally on financial reform.
Political experts said the White House likely wanted Madigan at the rally because of her status as perhaps the most popular major Democrat in the state.
“Lisa Madigan is very popular and not viewed in a highly partisan kind of way,” said Kent Redfield, a political science professor at the University of Illinois at Springfield.
Redfield explained that Obama’s advisers would not want anything to distract from the president’s message.
“If you’ve only got one Illinois constitutional officer there, then all the focus is on that,” he said. “If you’ve got a couple, then that diversifies the story, and it doesn’t look like [they’re] there just to help out Giannoulias.”
Redfield's comments were featured in a April 28, 2010, edition of Medill Reports: Chicago.
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