Vote Early and Vote Often: Is Blago So Bad?

Hizzoner

The city of Chicago and the state of Illinois has always been viewed askance for the, uh, irregularities in the electoral process. Upton Sinclair, in his book "The Jungle" was explicit about paying low-wage stockyard workers to vote Democratic, and that was 75 years ago or so. Thus, it ocmes as no surprise that in the wake of Richard Daley (J. OR M.)should come the latest scandal that is Gov. Rod Blagojevic...at least that's what everybody thinks. As a public service, I'm here to give you the skinny on REAL corruption in places which you may or may not have imagined. HINT: Illinois is FAR from the most corrupt place in this country. Let's look at the stats as compiled by the New York Times.
If one simply counts the number of government individuals found guilty in 2008 of corruption in local, state and federal cases, the best Illinois can do is 7th place behind (in this order) Florida, New York, Texas, Pennsylvania, California, and Ohio. Of course, you've noted that all of those states are probably more populaous than Illinois so the numbers would naturally be higher...although anything over one seems high to me.
So...let's look at how many government officials were found guilty PER CAPITA in states around the country. In that case, Illinois doesn't even make the top ten! Weighing in at #1 with one government official convicted per 66.9 people...(you can probably guess) The District of Columbia! (a no-brainer which probably excludes lobbyists and cabinet officials pardoned by executive order), which was followed in the top five by The Virgin Islands, Guam, North Dakota, and Arkansas with Louisiana and Mississippi following. Guam? What kind of corruption can take place there? No Illinois.
OK, OK those are statistics. How about asking unbiased people, like, say, court reporters? (You have to admit that The Times is nothing if not thorough!) The "winners" by popular acclaim were, in order of criminality Rhode Island, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Delaware, Alabama, and Kentucky. I found it odd that there were no real crossovers except Louisiana, and Illinois was nowhere to be found.
If you are wondering about my adopted state, Wisconsin was #25 in total number of convictions with 122; we were 35th in per capita convictions at 2.2 per hundred people; and court reporters slotted Wisconsin in at #36. I was going to add up the numbers from Illinois, but it seems clear that the reputation for the Land of Lincoln as a sewer of corruption is totally unjustified.
They are still FIBs, though.