President Blagojevich?

Federal charging documents reveal that Rod Blagojevich had a master plan to appoint himself to the Senate -- so he could run for president.

Published December 9, 2008 5:21PM (EST)

It's worth reading the entire complaint against (soon-to-be-former) Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Buried on page 74 of the document is a truly priceless piece of information (emphasis added):

In addition, in the course of the conversations over the last month, ROD BLAGOJEVICH has spent significant time weighing the option of appointing himself to the open Senate seat, and has expressed a variety of reasons for doing so, including frustration at being "stuck" as governor, a belief that he will be able to obtain greater resources if he is indicted as a sitting Senator as opposed to a sitting governor, and a desire to remake his image in consideration of a possible run for President in 2016, avoid impeachment by the Illinois legislature, make corporate contacts that would be of value to him after leaving public office, facilitate his wife's employment as a lobbyist, and assist in generating speaking fees should he decide to leave public office.

Blago '16! One possible campaign slogan, based on a quote on page 33: "Rod Blagojevich: If they don't perform, fuck 'em." Leave your other suggestions below for what could be the most entertaining presidential bid in history (assuming, that is, that Blagojevich isn't incarcerated by the time the Iowa caucuses roll around).

Update: I just noticed that Michael Crowley at The New Republic beat me to a very similar joke by a couple of hours (though I hadn't seen his post until well after both versions were published). Apparently, guys named Mike think alike too, in addition to all those great minds people keep mentioning. Also, apparently I should have started reading the complaint earlier than I did.


By Mike Madden

Mike Madden is Salon's Washington correspondent. A complete listing of his articles is here. Follow him on Twitter here.

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