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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tom Clarke who wrote (431472)	9/10/2011 1:32:08 AM
From: mistermj	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793957

Democrat, Republican — Cellini can play them all Powerbroker the unsung spider at the center of bipartisan web chicagotribune.com by John Kass • Sept. 9, 2011 Illinois Republicans are often easy to forget, what with the Democrats holding all the key offices, from City Hall West (121 N. LaSalle St.) to City Hall East (1600 Pennsylvania Ave.).Political historians would tell you that all that power didn't come from magic spells. It came from big-city Democratic Party patronage armies. Historians might also tell you that armies travel best on roads.And in Illinois, for decade upon decade upon decade, all the roads have led to Bill Cellini, the low-key multimillionaire boss hog Republican. Chieftain of the road builders, Cellini was at the heart of the bipartisan Illinois Combine. Cellini made his fortune through his political connections, working with Republican governors on questionable inside deals from gambling casinos to real estate, all of it from his power base in Springfield. But it's what he allegedly did with Democrat and convicted former Gov. Rod Blagojevich that finally landed Cellini in a federal indictment. On Oct. 3, Cellini will stand trial in federal court in Chicago. If you're there you'll see a little guy in his late 70s in a dark suit, unassuming, a thin man wearing a Julius Caesar-style haircut. And if you're interested in how Illinois politics works — not the speeches of the puppets and the gamesmanship of their media lickspittles, but the real politics of hard leverage for big money — then you'll pay attention. It's your state, and corrupt politicians took it from you years and years ago. Even as the state was going bankrupt, they were gorging on what they could grab. And when federal investigators started nosing around, Cellini's crowd wasn't worried: They thought they could use their Republican clout in the then-Republican White House to get rid of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald. Oops. They were wrong. As I mentioned, Cellini isn't a large man. He has tiny hands. But over the years in Illinois, those tiny hands made powerful political fists. Just ask former U.S. Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, the Republican who went to war with the Combine to appoint independent federal prosecutors in Illinois. Peter Fitzgerald paid the price. The Illinois Republican Party refused to endorse him for re-election after he recommended independent Patrick Fitzgerald (no relation) as the federal hammer in Chicago. "I've fought him my entire career," Sen. Fitzgerald once told me about Cellini. "And for near 40 years, Cellini has been calling the shots from behind the scenes in Springfield. He's gotten very rich off the taxpayers. Very rich." But Cellini stayed to pull the strings. And the Illinois Republican Party ran Pete Fitzgerald out of politics. So don't tell me there's not a Combine. The Cellini trial, one of the last chapters of the federal government's Operation Board Games investigation, will lay out how the Combine works. Powerful Illinois Republicans team up with powerful Illinois Democrats, and some earthy characters are thrown in. One is convicted political fixer Tony Rezko, fundraiser and real estate fairy to President Barack Obama, and fundraiser to Blagojevich as well. In one FBI-recorded phone call, Cellini was in serious conversation with a Republican crook, the since-convicted Stuart Levine, a big fan of gladiator movies. But they didn't talk swords and sandals. Instead, they were allegedly discussing the shakedown of Hollywood movie producer and Chicago Democratic insider Tom Rosenberg, who was also a money manager. They allegedly tried to use a government pension board they controlled — investing billions upon billions of teacher pension money — to threaten Rosenberg. The offer: Rosenberg could fork over campaign cash for Blagojevich, or forget about doing state business. Cellini told Levine that Rosenberg said the pressure was "making me sick at my stomach." And then, what followed from Cellini's lips is the kind of truth that explains much more than one alleged shakedown. "And I said, 'Well, hey, it sure as hell didn't make me feel too good, 'cause I figured I've been kinda flyin' under the radar here, you know,'" Cellini said in the recorded conversation. How true. He flew under that radar year after year, without getting much publicity. Fools like Blagojevich preen and demand media attention. Guys like Cellini prefer to count their coin in the shadows. Cellini could tell Republican governors what to do. He could raise money for Democrats. He could put his sister Janis in squeaky-clean Gov. Jim Edgar's administration as Edgar's patronage chief, and Edgar was still inexplicably perched on the white horse of reform, a testament no doubt to the talents of Edgar's public relations guys. Cellini was quite ecumenical in his politics. He had former Republican National Committee Treasurer Robert Kjellander (pronounced $hell-an-der) as an errand boy, but he was also partnered up with Chicago real estate developer Michael Marchese, the favored developer of former Mayor Richard M. Daley. Cellini could own a state-licensed gambling casino and a Springfield hotel bailed out with a stinky state loan, and through all that he could remain virtually unknown. "He's too 'inside baseball,'" said one of my supervisors years and years ago, explaining why Cellini wasn't in the newspapers more often. "Nobody knows the guy." And Cellini sure liked it that way. Think of a spider in the middle of a web, and all those silky strands bring him information on what's coming for dinner. A spider with hair combed forward over the forehead. I can't wait for October. jskass@tribune.com mailto:jskass@tribune.com