HOME STATE?  WHAT HOME STATE? – AT 9:21 A.M. ET:  Well, I guess when you're a citizen of the world you don't need to show much loyalty to the boys back home.  Barack Obama stiffs the Illinois machine, er, organization.  From The Politico:

Sen. Dick Durbin slipped into the West Wing last week to ask Rahm Emanuel for White House help in saving Barack Obama’s old Senate seat.

But he didn’t leave with any ironclad commitments.

Durbin told Emanuel that Democratic nominee Alexi Giannoulias could use some serious presidential intervention in his uphill race against Republican Rep. Mark Kirk.

Yeah.  Apparently he could also use some help in keeping the law off his tail.  He's involved in a "family" bank, the Broadway Bank, that has a reputation for servicing some mighty interesting "depositors" – the kind who sometimes deposit dead bodies.

At the moment, the White House seems open to the idea of losing Obama’s old seat rather than putting the president’s prestige on the line for Giannoulias, the brash and boyish Illinois state treasurer — and onetime Obama basketball buddy — whose campaign has been rocked by the financial meltdown of his family’s bank.

You know, this Obama has always had such interesting friends.  Have you noticed?s

Durbin said Emanuel was sympathetic to his pleas but ultimately noncommittal, telling him that the White House was “considering the race, weighing their options and weighing a decision on what to do.”

Emanuel, a former congressman from Chicago, tried but failed last year to get Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan into the race. Now, he told Durbin, it’s up to Giannoulias to prove his campaign has enough “viability and strength” to warrant Obama’s involvement.

COMMENT:  Translated into English:  Unless the candidate can burn the records and tapes, and get rid of the evidence, the president won't be hopping onto Air Force One and ordering "Chicago.  Make it fast."

April 23, 2010