The tale of two states: Illinois and Indiana

What an interesting year for elections, real choices between ways to govern and run our states and our nation.

On the one side you have Barack Obama's Illinois-style:

From: Chicago Tribune

Gov. Rod Blagojevich has been interviewed multiple times by federal investigators looking into allegations that he and key members of his administration offered contracts and state work in exchange for campaign fundraising help, according to documents unsealed Thursday.

The documents were made public in the Antoin "Tony" Rezko criminal case on the same day that Blagojevich held a major fundraising event at the River East Arts Center. Similar events in past years have reaped millions of dollars for the governor's campaign, much of it coming from firms that landed lucrative state contracts and individuals given coveted state jobs or board appointments.

From: Frugal Hoosiers

an economist with the Illinois Department of Employment Security, announced that the unemployment rate in Illinois jumped one full point, from 5.4% to 6.4%.

Thousands more Illinoisans are looking for work, part of an unusually high jump in the state's unemployment rate in May that makes some puzzled and worried.

Illinois' unemployment rate jumped to 6.4 percent in May from 5.4 percent in April. That climb of one percentage point is the largest one-month increase here in more than 20 years and is the nation's third-highest increase in May. (Incidentally the economist bears the name of our Governor Mitch Daniels)

On the Indiana side of the border:

From Fort Wayne News:

Bob Pastrick left the East Chicago mayor’s office following defeat in a 2004 special election prompted by rampant absentee ballot fraud in the regular contest a year earlier (Guinane, Times of Northwest Indiana). His last successful re-election, in 1999, later was tainted by the unearthing of a massive sidewalks-for-votes scandal that snared a trio of top aides and three city councilmen.

Comment: Indiana Democrat Superdelegate former Mayor Bob Pastrick is finally being pulled into trials relating to his corruption and theft from taxpayers to buy votes. Two choice for Attorney General, Linda Pence on the Democrat side who appears to be soft on these corruption charges so far, and Greg Zoeller who has vowed to take the prosecution all the way. It's time to clean out Lake County, feeling too much like neighbor Illinois.

From The Herald Journal

The state's overall seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose from 4.8 percent in April to 5.3 percent in May, but Workforce Development director Teresa Voors said Indiana's rate is still lower than the U.S. as well as neighboring states.Michigan saw the highest rate among Indiana's neighbors with 8.5 percent unemployment.Illinois came in next at 6.4 percent with Ohio following close behind at 6.3 percent and Kentucky at 6.2 percent.Voors said advances in some areas have tempered the global economy's effect on the state."New business initiatives, such as life sciences, are diversifying the state's economy and lessening the severity caused by the current global economic slowdown," Voors said.

You choose. Do you want Barack Obama's Illinois style corruption, vote buying, tax increasing and economic messes? Or, do you want taxes reduced, government cleaned of both corruption and people that have been there too long, and economic investment and job creatoin?

Easy call for me.