[applause] >> thanks very much. elizabeth brackett author of pay to play. and elizabeth will be signing copies of this book right after this event in one of the rooms right outside here and i urge all of you to read it. i was just telling elizabeth before we came up here this is one of the first books -- i do this every year here at the litfest. this is the first time i'd actually read the book before they assigned me to interview the author. i was an eager -- an eager reader of this book when it first came out as a lot of people in illinois have been because the story of our governor is a fascinating and ever-changing story with so many different dimensions. i will ask elizabeth some questions. we'll have a conversation here for a short time and then i'd like some of you to come up and

take the microphone about halfway through and i'd like to hear your questions as well. the first thing i want to talk about -- i want to start this conversation with something that's been in the news in the past week and that is patti blagojevich, the ex-governor's wife is now on a reality tv show called "i'm a celebrity, get me out of here." i don't know -- have anybody been watching that besides me? this is a very highbrow crowd. i have not missed a minute of it. [laughter] >> and i wanted to know, elizabeth, have you been watching it and what do you make it. >> i've missed quite a few minutes of it, i'm sure. i watched the first night and that was about enough for me. once the torrentials went down i wasn't too sure more news was going to be made. it seemed his wife and our

ex-governor has been able to stay away from the camera. they are doing a good job on their media tour >> in what ways is understanding the relationship between rod and patti blagojevich and patti blagojevich's character herself. i can refer to it as the puzzle of rod blagojevich. >> it's a very important part of this puzzle. you know, rod blagojevich's political career began after he married patti blagojevich. her father alderman richard mel in the city of chicago, and he really launched rod blagojevich's political career. there's no doubt that rod blagojevich would not be in politics today without richard mel. >> what exactly was he doing when they met? >> he had just -- he'd been a former state's attorney at 51st and wentworth and he set up practice. he set up a sort of storefront law office and his mother was

his receptionist. and that's what he was doing when he met patti. after he met patti, which some think was by design that he wanted to meet the daughter of a very powerful political alderman in case he ever decided to go into politics but regardless, that's speculation. they met at a richard mel fundraiser. patti mel, dick mel, told me had just broken up with a boyfriend and she was kind of moping around the house. so her father said, well, come to my fundraiser we're having. there was a great german restaurant on the north side. there was the fundraiser. and that's where they met. and patti said afterwards -- she told her father, you know, fink if anything out with him, i'm going to have the time of my life. [laughter] >> she was right about that one. [laughter] >> and that launched his political career. >> what was it about -- do you think -- do you think that when he was a storefront lawyer with his mother as a receptionist,

did he still have political dreams or had he always had political dreams or did dick mel give him political dreams? >> i think he always had some political dreams. you know, the one subject that he always loved was history. and he had a fascination with politics, with american presidents. to this day rod blagojevich can name you every president forwards and backwards. when he was a kid in about eighth grade, he organized mock elections of who was the most famous or important president. so his mother early on, probably when he was about in fifth grade had given him a collection of little american presidents, little plastic figures. and he would come and while other kids were playing, you know, with their baseballs, which he did also, he would be home organizing his little american presidential figures and then he would run these mock elections. so he always had an interest in

history and in politics. i'm not sure he absolutely set out to become a politician. but i think it was in the back of his mind. >> it doesn't seem like his projectionry until he met patti mel was political at that point. you don't go from being a storefront lawyer to being a powerful politician? >> well, you have to wonder why he wanted to become a lawyer. i mean, i think that may have in the back of his mind he may have wanted to get into politics. he wanted to do something that was important. he wanted to do something where he would be known. he wanted to do something to live up to his parents expectations and all the sacrifice that they had made for him and for his brother. he wanted to be important. that was -- >> but there wasn't this sense that he was this brilliant person who had all this potential, right? i mean, he didn't do -- he didn't -- refresh my memory on his academic career 'cause he did not do that well in high school and he had trouble getting into college and so on?

>> i need to refresh your memory because it was his academic career was probably forgettable. he did okay in school. his brother, who is 15 months older than he is, and they were very, very close -- he was the star in the family. the older brother, he was more athletically gifted. he was more academically gifted. and he won a baseball scholarship to the university of tampa and went down to that university so that's where rod went also. he followed his brother down there. he didn't win a baseball scholarship or an academic scholarship. his grades were good enough to get him into northwestern. although, again he was always sort of in the middle of the class. and when he wanted to go to law school, his graduate record exams in his law school lsat exams were not good enough to get him into the law school that he wanted to get into. so he finally applied to the university of -- to pepperdine

university in california. and got in there. his law school roommate who remained a friend and a former chief of staff and has happened to so many of rod's friends is indicted with him. [laughter] >> told me as a student even in law school, rod -- you know, he did well in the subjects he liked. anything connected with history and politics he did well in those subjects. even in law school. he read a lot but not necessarily what was assigned and his law professor said to him, you know, if you would apply yourself -- i know a lot of your parents said this to your kids if you would apply yourself to all the subjects in the way you do the ones you'd enjoy, you'd be doing a lot better. he did exactly what he wanted to do and kind of ignored everything else. and that was his academic career. >> pepperdine is a famously conservative place. and he is also known -- i believe you wrote about this in the book also to have been a real fan of ronald reagan. he voted for reagan at least

once, maybe twice. >> once. >> he was sort of a young republican at that point, right? >> well, you have to remember his real hero is richard nixon and this is primarily because he's a son of a serbian immigrants and most immigrants at that point were republican when they came to the united states number oneuuz because th were very angry at roosevelt and -- roosevelt and -- [inaudible] >> well, eisenhower -- but what happened at yalta, in essence, they felt the many serbs felt yugoslavia had been given away by the iron curtain by the democratic leadership so they -- and they really loved general dwight d. eisenhower because he had liberated the prison camp,

german prison camp that rode blagojevich found himself in. he had been captured and spent four years in a nazi prison camp so many serbs including rode blagojevich were staunch republicans. and that affection for dwight d. eisenhower passed on to richard nixon. so in this blagojevich home where only serbian was spoken, the republicans were the party of choice. his mother had been born in the united states and her parents were from bosnia and she was a democratic. they lived in thomas keen -- do you remember alderman thomas keen ward and she had a job as a ticket taker that she probably got as a political job so she was a chicago republican. so there was always sort of this clash. >> chicago democrat. his brother remains a staunch republican. he probably wishes he had never

joined his brother's political persuasion since he also is now indicted. so there was that split. i think rod eventually figured out that his political career would be a lot better off if he's running the city of chicago as a democrat so he did move over. >> one of his first jobs -- first political jobs was working with edward verdoliac who was a democratic. those of you who don't know chicago politics, he was a big time chicago democratic alderman who converted to the republican party in the '80s sometime, right. >> correct. >> and i'm wondering -- to what extent -- and this gets to a large question how much of his political philosophy, what truly animates him is ideological. >> well, you know, that's kind of hard to figure out. i mean, i think his political -- his public political philosophy, his populism, very populist candidate, his concern for the

little guy, his antitax stance -- a lot of that does come from the immigrant values of his father. that these were, you know, look out for the little guy kind of values. his father worked in the steel mills in finkel steel mill. he worked in the alaskan pipeline. his parents sacrificed everything so their two sons could be successful and you can see that in rod blagojevich's public politics. but when you -- when you look at what happened to his personal life and his personal ethics, there's not a lot of indication that those values, those values of hard work, honesty and performance translated into his personal life. >> one of my earliest strong impressions of blagojevich, he happens to be -- he was my state representative and he then was my congressman up in the northwest side and one of the early votes that he took that put me back on my heels -- there

was an amendment to ban desecration of the american flag. and this was i considered a foolish idea and a republican kind of idea and he voted for that amendment. and my thought was, this guy and then i began looking at his record, what core values does this man really have. what makes him a democrat other than that he is -- you say populist and i tend to look at him and his record as opportunism. that he looked for the holes that he thought that the public wanted -- he wanted to be what he thought the voters wanted him to be. that he didn't -- that he was forming himself as a candidate, not as someone who actually had a core set of principles. >> i think that's a good analysis. i think that's a very good analysis. another surprising vote that he took, he was the only democrat, illinois democrat, in the congressional delegation to vote for funding the iraq war and that was a surprising vote as well. >> so you have this man -- if i can rewind a little bit to patti

mel or patti blagojevich. what do we know about her and any influence she might have on him or just -- who is she and what's she all about? >> the whole story of patti mel, dick mel and rod blagojevich is really -- has shakespearean tragic overtones. it does. i mean, patti -- dick mel was very strong family man. he had three children and a lovely wife, very strong family. and when patti met rod initially dick mel was very pleased and thought this was going to be a terrific match. he was -- he was all for it. his wife on the other hand was somewhat concerned about rod blagojevich from the very beginning, she just didn't trust him. and she, you know, was not sure -- he had her daughter's best interest at heart. which turned out sadly to be the

case. she wound up with this horrible brain disease and died about five years ago now. so you had dick mel who at one point had a son-in-law who was the governor of illinois, lovely wife, great kids, suddenly, his wife dies. he's completely estranged from his daughter, his grandchildren. and it was just very tragic. >> excuse me, but could you tell that story for people who don't remember that. exactly, where the schism came about in the mel/blagojevich family. it was over the landfill. >> it was over the landfill but it really began even earlier than that. dick mel was critical to rod blagojevich's election first as a state representative and then as a congressman. and then when they -- they began thinking about running for governor he remained critical.

but as the gubernatorial campaign went on, rod blagojevich surrounded himself with a different crowd which included tony rezko and christopher kelly and stewart levine and these are people who saw rod as governor but also went along with his dream of becoming president of the united states. to understand rod blagojevich, you have to understand how important that was to him, to become president of the united states. and the people around him then began looking at richard mel thinking, well, you know, maybe he wouldn't play to well in a presidential campaign, an old line chicago democratic politician so they began freezing him out and by the time rod became governor, they really froze him out, which just, as you may imagine, irritated dick mel no end. i think what dick mel really

wanted. he didn't necessarily, you know, want to be on the staff or anything like that but he wanted to be a player. he wanted to be in the strategy committee meetings and he never was. and his ward organization that had worked so hard for rod blagojevich from the time he was elected to the illinois house and all the way through the governor's race was just livid because rod blagojevich wanted nothing to do with them either. not only did they not get the state jobs they wanted, questionable or not, he gave them what you would call no respect. there was a small incident when rod blagojevich's name was still on the 33rd ward stationary, which they did because they were proud of him. they felt they elected a governor and rod blagojevich saw his name on the 33rd ward stationary and had christopher kelly call up dick mel and arrange a meeting with him to tell him that his son-in-law wanted him to take his name off

the 33rd ward stationary and the meeting was with kelly and not blagojevich. >> right, right. >> suddenly, blagojevich working to work with dick mel and which most could be a phone call, this is rod this is awkward for me can you take the name off and instead he's going through these channels and when we get to this other incident that i would like you to describe, the landfill. it's not that rod had a problem with dick mel but the way he handled that problem which was so telling. >> exactly. and that is exactly what he said about the incident on the stationary. dick mel, you know, why didn't he call me up. he's my son-in-law for heaven's sake. there was an incident. it was on a christmas eve. it was about a year -- in the first year of rod blagojevich's first term. and a family christmas party. and suddenly there's a nephew of marge mel, dick mel's wife is talking about a landfill that he is opening and he apparently is

saying, you know, i'm not having any trouble getting this landfill done because, you know, rod's governor and dick mel, the alderman and rod heard this and was just livid instead of saying, listen, lay off, you know, we've got to do things correctly, he went to the illinois epa and had them shut down the landfill. well, this really -- this was the last straw for dick mel in this continuing relationship that had been deteriorating all along and he just went ballistic. and i remembered the press conference where i was, and he -- he initially talked to fran spielman who got him late at night when he was the angriest and basically what he was saying to the entire chicago press corps well, you know, my son-in-law he's selling state jobs. why do you think all these people are getting appointed to commissions. how do you think they are getting state jobs. it's $25,000 a pop. and, you know, everyone was a little stunned.

and then a couple of weeks later he was particularly talking about christopher kelly. christopher kelly threatened to sue and so dick mell took it back. but it was too late. you know, the genie was out of the bottle. the attorney general started the first investigations and that morphed into patrick fitzgerald's investigations and we've seen what happened with that. dick mell created his son-in-law and, in essence, planted the seeds that destroyed him. >> let's talk a little bit about why rod blagojevich had dreams of becoming the president and why they were actually somewhat plausible. if you rewind seven years or so in illinois and you were to say there's a young politician, a young democratic politician who's going to become president of the united states before the year 2010, everyone would have thought you were talking about rod blagojevich. and, you know, the way we've been talking about him, it sounds like he's just this mope. he's like -- he's like the character you see on the

"saturday night live" impression. but, in fact, blagojevich had a great deal i believe of political skill. i don't mean necessarily governing skill but political skill. and could you -- >> that's the problem. >> yeah, exactly. but can you talk about -- i mean, he's not just a cartoon mope. there is a lot to this man as a politician. >> when he won as the governorship and he seriously thought about running for president, as rick said, it was not unrealistic. i mean, you look at it he had just won for governor in the fifth larger state in illinois. he had run a terrific campaign, a very populist campaign, very -- he was an appealing character. the voters certainly responded to him. he could sure know how to raise a lot of money. and so as he was being talked about, it wasn't unrealistic.

i remember doing an interview with jan schakowsky and i think it's realistic he'll run for president and many of his contemporaries at that time agreed with her and when you look at the fact that there was another young politician who was exactly the same age who'd been elected to the illinois legislature at exactly the same age, with not much national -- if any no national experience, then became elected to the u.s. senate at the same age that rod blagojevich was when he was elected to become governor and guess what? he's our president. it wasn't that unrealistic. >> no, it really wasn't. and if you look back at the first inauguration -- first inaugural speech that rod blagojevich gave. it was a wonderful, stirring, uplifting, you know -- this is a new -- a dawn of a new era in illinois. the politics of old is over. this new era of cooperation, getting things done. it was an amazing moment. and if you were in springfield for that and certainly saw that and reviewed it.

but it was really quite a moment when blagojevich took office and a lot of people thought that he had a ton of promise to do just what you're talking about. >> absolutely. it's been 25 years since democrats held the office of -- they controlled both the legislatures, both branches of the legislature and governor and you remember the governor that he followed, you know, george ryan was in a bit of trouble. he hadn't been indicted yet -- he had been indicted but he hadn't been convicted yet so this was going to be, you know, the new era of reform, progressive politics were coming to illinois. and rod blagojevich looked like the guy to lead it. >> so put on your psychologist hat and your political analyst hat and tell us -- >> i'm not sure they're the same thing. >> well, put one on and put the other one on. >> okay. >> what went wrong. what was his tragic flaw if he has one or what were his tragic mistakes? >> i think again you have to understand -- to understand him you have to understand how badly he wanted to be president.

i remember i was standing behind dick mell on election night in 2002 and i heard him say to -- turn to a friend and say, well, you know, it's onto the white house. so this was all around him. and there are two ways if you're going to run for president what you're going to try to do. you're going to try to run -- start to organize a national base. you're going to go to every fundraiser, you know, chicken dinner throughout the united states. you're going to build organizations either through the internet or through -- put together a fundraising organization. but you're going to start to build an organization throughout the country which is what barack obama did or you're going to decide, i'm just -- i'm going to raise as much money as i possibly can and that's the way i'm going to realize my dream. and that's what rod blagojevich decided he wanted to do. and so what -- and the way he wanted to do it was to use his position as governor of illinois

in order to be able to hand out favors, to hand out jobs to control seats on boards and, however, if you wanted one of those positions, and if you wanted to do business in illinois, you had to pay to play. and part of that money would go to go into the rod blagojevich campaign fund. friends for blagojevich. that was the whole key to the -- what patrick fitzgerald called a criminal enterprise which was for the benefit of personal benefit and political benefit of rod blagojevich. so when you put that national fundraising operation together, everybody who -- not everybody but most people who wanted to participate in illinois government got part of their access by contributing to that political campaign. and that's really what sent him down the road to ruin. >> what's the model for that? you have to sell yourself to a national audience and you can't as governor of illinois raise

enough money to run a national presidential campaign. we saw how much they had to spend -- >> well, he was doing a pretty good job. >> right. but you can earn enough money to win reelection, which he did, against a battered republican party in illinois. but the idea that you could raise -- raise your way into the white house, that seems crazy to me. >> what he wanted to do was build this national fundraising operation. and, for instance, when he talked to joe kerry, one of the people who wound up being indicted and convicted -- actually pled guilty to corruption and it was joe kerry who had been a fundraiser for al gore, for bill clinton. he'd been a very prominent national democratic from chicago. and rod blagojevich turned to him to want to know how to put together a national fundraising operation probably in about the third year of his first term -- second year of his first term so he wanted the roots into, you know, how to put together this

organization. and he also turned to a political strategy firm out of washington, d.c., squire, knaap and dunn as soon as they were creating a national fundraising strategy they were trying to position rod blagojevich to become a national candidate and that's what happened to a lot of his politics in illinois because many of his policies that he was so passionate about such as some kind of universal healthcare, even the all-kids program which was a very successful program -- many of those were based -- i mean, he believed in these things but they were also would position him very well for a run for the presidency. he liked these big national issues that could get national press. to put himself in a position to run. we always -- we called it sort of, you know, he was governing by press conference on these national issues that he never built a real constituency for in

illinois and certainly he didn't build it in the legislature. >> i can see the strategy of saying, okay, i want to create an image of the can-do governor, the guy who worked the illinois miracle, right? >> right. >> because this is what always happens in a national campaign. someone who's a governor said look what i did in arkansas and you show people what you have done. what puzzles me about this is that he tried -- he wanted to get things done but he thought the way to get things done was to pick a fight with everybody going around and i wrote in my column for tomorrow -- i said his main political strategy it seems to have been throwing down the gauntlet in front of people. he was always picking fights. just from the coldly -- let's put ideology aside, let's put illegality aside, why was that smart -- i mean, who gave him that idea? was that his idea.

was that some bad consultant because it seems like a dumb way of going by working an illinois miracle is trying to fight with the legislature. >> well, i think that was -- i think it was both his own character and the way -- he always envisioned himself as a scrappy fighter. i mean, that's how he saw himself. perhaps it was coming up in the son of immigrants. raised on the northwest side and at northwestern he felt himself as an outsider. he felt as somebody who had to run against the status quo. i think that was part of basically who he was. and he really -- then found consultants who agreed with him. and who took that portion of who rod blagojevich actually was and turned it into what they thought would be a national winning strategy on a national campaign. you're right. he's such a puzzling character because he just seems to be such

a dichotomy. at one point there's this man who is gifted politically. can give a terrific speech. can -- >> works a room. >> works a room like nobody's business but on the other hand, he absolutely did not build a single strong political relationship in illinois. he was at war with the legislature from the very moment -- even before he was elected. and he liked that. he liked to set up, you know, straw men as the problem and he was going to come in and conquer the problem and emerge the  victor. that's how he saw himself. it didn't work. >> i feel like i'm hogging elizabeth -- with my question here. i'm going to ask people to come and stand in front of the microphone for your questions as we get into the last portion of this program but while you're lining up i want to ask elizabeth to tell me about -- you interviewed a number of people who were