Embattled Cook County Board President Todd Stroger demanded a full federal investigation of his office on Monday and called for himself to be indicted. The move comes after a Chicago Tribune poll indicated Stroger had an approval rating of only 10 percent and his fellow party leaders refused to back him for reelection.

“I know people will say that I took after my father by being an incompetent patronage hack who did nothing more than maintain a bloated payroll and took care of the cronies who hand-picked me for this office, but that’s not true,” Stroger said. “I’m trying to take after our esteemed former Gov. Rod Blagojevich so I can get indicted and maybe get a book deal out of it. I probably have no chance of being reelected so I might as well try and get what I can before the time comes.”

Stroger’s late father, former Cook County Board President John Stroger, was seeking reelection when he suffered a debilitating stroke a week before the Democratic primary in March, 2006. He won that hotly contested primary even though Stroger’s condition was concealed by his family.

In June, 2006 the Stroger family admitted that John Stroger was incapacitated and Todd Stroger took his father’s name on the ballot. The switch was made after the general election filing deadline to keep any reform-minded Democrats from running against him. Todd Stroger won that general election. John Stroger passed away in August, 2006.

Since then, the younger Stroger’s popularity fell off a cliff as he pushed through a county sales-tax hike and was caught giving away patronage jobs to those with questionable or nonexistent qualifications. His father’s cronies within the county Democratic machine reversed course recently by refusing to endorse his reelection bid in the Feb. 2 primary.

“Yeah, we really screwed up by letting John Stroger hand the job to his son,” said one county Democratic committeeman who asked not to be identified. “We knew ‘the Toddler’ wasn’t man enough for the job but we had no idea the voters would realize it.”

Stroger said he was surprised at the setbacks and vowed to fight for reelection while hoping to be indicted.

“Frankly I don’t get it, my dad was a machine hack who maintained the patronage system along with a bloated county payroll and budget. He stuck it to the taxpayers for years and they reelected him several times,” Stroger said. “Maybe the voters are finally waking up to what an incompetent boob I really am. That’s why I need to get indicted before the voters get wise and remove me from office.”

Blagojevich was removed from office in January and indicted in April on charges of racketeering conspiracy, wire fraud, extortion conspiracy, attempted extortion and making false statements. His trial is pending and he recently published a book trying to cash in on his infamy. Stroger pointed to Blagojevich as an example of the right way to leave office.

“I have no chance of being reelected and, let’s face it, you’d have to be a damn fool to give me a job. I wouldn’t hire myself to be a bathroom attendant,” Stroger said. “Being indicted, serving a few years in jail and writing a book are my only hope of having any kind of a future.”

This was written by Marcus Manfred for The Daily Blank. It is licensed under an Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. If you love it, please re-post the complete article (including this blurb) on your site. We'd be flattered.