Pay to Play: How Rod Blagojevich Turned Political Corruption Into a National Sideshow

by Elizabeth Brackett

Weeks after President Barack Obama's remarkable victory, the nation was shocked to learn that Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich had been arrested at his home by the FBI. There are allegations that Blago had tried to sell Obama's soon-to-be-vacant Senate seat for cash. This effort appeared to be only the latest in a cascade of corruption that prompted U.S. attorney Patrick Fitzgerald to charge the governor with actions that would make Lincoln roll over in his grave. In Pay to Play, Elizabeth Brackett, award-winning correspondent in the political realm for PBS's The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, uncovers new details as she goes behind the story of the first governor to be impeached by the Illinois legislature. All the time tracing the background of corruption in Illinois politics and its implications for state government executive branches across the country, she tells precisely how Blagojevich's personal biography and his political upbringing paved the way for his reckless fall; what the dilemma of selecting replacement senators means for other states; what secrets the federal trial of the governor is likely to produce; why Roland Burris was selected for the U.S. Senate seat for Illinois; and how a man named Obama could emerge with integrity from the swill of this same political environment.

Genres: Nonfiction

256 pages, Hardcover

First published April 20, 2009

Reviews

[Donna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a well written book, but it does collect all of the facts of the case. It might be good as a refresher once Blago's trial starts in 2010. Somehow Brackett doesn't capture the outrageousness of it all.

[Viral · Rating 3 out of 5]

I remember being a kid in NJ who was excited about Obama becoming president when I vaguely heard on the news that the Governor of Illinois was being arrested for trying to sell Obama's Senate seat. As the years have gone on, I've grown and learned a lot, and even after moving to Illinois and getting very involved in local politics, I still didn't really understand the Blago phenomenon. So after I heard he got pardoned by Trump and is now rumored to be a potential pick for ambassador to Serbia, I figured I'd read a book about him.

I wish Brackett had gotten a real editor, or at least put some effort into cleaning up typos, because this book is littered with them. Nevertheless, it does a good job of telling the rise of Blago and his thirst for power, although it it leans a little too basic for me in terms of its analysis. Brackett is clearly an Illinois Republican and it shows.

But I do feel like I have a better sense of who Blago is/was, and I do think he's not wrong when he describes himself as a Trumpian Democrat - that's basically who he always was, and who he gets to fully embrace as now. Brash, loud, provocative. Uninterested in coalition building or the minutia of governance. Just an obsession with the allure of the camera, the fun of campaigning, the thrill of victory, the spoils of power.

[Guera25 · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have no love for skeevy politicians, and it's no great leap to think Blagojevich is exactly as guilty as Brackett charges, but your credibility as a hard-hitting journalist who checks her facts and has thirty years' experience as a reporter takes a hit when you write that Sugar Ray Leonard once fought that oh-so-famous boxing luminary, Tommy Heard. Because you couldn't be arsed to verify that he did, in fact, fight Tommy Hearns.

Additionally, an experienced reporter/writer should know the difference between "exacerbated" and "Exasperated."

In the preface, Brackett boasts that she wrote from six a.m. to ten p.m. for months to produce this book. She must be joking. She might've sat at her desk for sixteen hours and played at serious writer, but she most assuredly did not write for most of that time, nor should it have taken ten months to strain out this puny, perfunctory volume. Methinks she wrote for about two hours a day and spent the rest of the time refreshing her email and social media accounts.

A waste of time and money.

[Olga Vannucci · Rating 5 out of 5]

He was brazen, had no shame.
Governing was just a game.

[Suka · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book gave me a clearer understanding of the amount of corruption in Illinois' business-as-usual. Of course Blago thinks he is innocent -- he just did what everyone else was doing. But if it's wrong, it's still wrong. As a former prosecutor, Blago should know the difference. This book presents Blagojevich as a total narcissist and disagreeable character, unlike the "good guy nobody understands family man" persona he tries to portray in the media.

[Cynic · Rating 4 out of 5]

Blago, enough said.