"There is so much more coming it is breathtaking," an almost always reliable source said recently when asked about the recent flood of news stories about alleged corruption within Governor Rod Blagojevich's administration.

That source wasn't the only one making this prediction. Plenty of others are saying that the Chicago Tribune is sitting on a large pile of explosives. Unlike 1998, when the Tribune mostly sat by while other media outlets ran stories about George Ryan's alleged corruption, the paper is clearly trying to stay out front on this Blagojevich thing. As you may have seen, the Trib published several more stories over the long Independence Day holiday weekend and then published follow-ups for days.

I'm not a big fan of third-party candidates.

It's not that I'm ecstatic about the two-party system. Too many "mainstream" candidates are poll-driven media robots to the point that they make me a little batty.

I wouldn't mind having another choice, if only to force the other candidates to stop acting like automatons and start speaking like human beings again.

The problem is that third-party candidates are usually a bit, um, goofy. Two words: Ross Perot. Need I say more?

Is Governor Rod Blagojevich's administration just as corrupt as or even more corrupt than former Governor George Ryan's crew? A new poll finds a plurality of Illinoisans would answer "yes" to that question.

In addition to this column I publish a daily political newsletter called Capitol Fax. A couple of years ago I also started a blog, which can be found at (http://www.thecapitolfaxblog.com).


 Running the blog is a real pain sometimes. It’s a lot of work and I’ve had to weed out some truly insane commenters. Still, most commenters have interesting, insightful thoughts, so I thought I’d share some of them with you today.