Nixing Blago

Here’s what Obama for America has to say about Sheila Nix, who was just announced as a chief of staff for Vice President Joe Biden’s team at campaign headquarters in Chicago:

"Sheila Nix has for the last three years served as the US Executive Director of ONE, a bipartisan advocacy organization co-founded by Bono. Before joining ONE, she was a senior vice-president for the Strategy Group, where she focused on direct mail for the Obama general election. Sheila’s public service career includes serving as Chief of Staff to Senators Bill Nelson of Florida and Bob Kerrey of Nebraska. She also worked on Bob Kerrey’s 1992 presidential campaign."

That press release leaves out an important line in Nix’s biography, but it’s not surprising that she and the Democrats want to suppress it. From 2004 to 2008, Nix was one of Rod Blagojevich’s deputy governors. Even after stepping down, Nix remained loyal to her old boss. At that point, Blagojevich fundraiser Tony Rezko had just been convicted of corruption, but Nix told the State Journal-Register that Blagojevich had not been wrong in taking Rezko’s advice early in his governorship.

“Tony was a successful businessman at that time,” Nix said. “I think the governor’s point of view is, ‘I want to bring new people into state government. I want to have people who understand business.’”

This Politico article doesn’t mention the Blagojevich connection, either.

It’s all part of the de-Blagojevichification of the Democratic Party, and especially the Obama campaign, which tries to pretend its candidate is not a Chicago politician.

Blagojevich didn’t have much to do with Obama’s 2008 campaign -- he wasn’t even at the Grant Park rally. But as the Democrats recycle his old operatives, they now have to pretend -- like the state capitol, which refuses to hang a Blagojevich portrait -- that he never existed at all.

Buy this book! Ward Room blogger Edward McClelland's book, Young Mr. Obama: Chicago and the Making of a Black President , is available Amazon. Young Mr. Obama includes reporting on President Obama's earliest days in the Windy City, covering how a presumptuous young man transformed himself into presidential material. Buy it now!

Contact Us