Blagojevich considered Schwarzenegger, Oprah Winfrey for Obama’s vacant Senate seat
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Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, on trial for corruption, considered tapping a celebrity to fill Barack Obama’s vacant Senate seat in the fall of 2008, according to recordings played at his trial on Monday. From the Chicago Sun-Times:
Blagojevich is insistent that they ‘bolster the list’ of potential candidates -- even if it means looking outside of Illinois. ‘Who outside of Illinois might fit the bill?’ he is heard asking [chief of staff John] Harris. He mentions California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as an example. Harris tries to talk him out of it. ‘Picking somebody outside of Illinois has a whole host of problems,’ Harris tells him. ‘(They’ll say), ‘There are 13 million residents (in Illinois), Rod hates them all.’’
It doesn’t sound as if Schwarzenegger was seriously considered.
Oprah Winfrey, on the other hand, seems to have been given a longer look. ‘She’s a king-maker. She made Obama. ... She’s up there so high that no one can assail this pick. This would be huge,’ Blagojevich is heard saying on the tape.
-- Shane Goldmacher in Sacramento