I carry no brief for former Governor Rod Blagojevich (D).

Unlike many Illinoisans, I can honestly tell you that I voted against Blagojevich five times since 1996. I was not able to vote against him when he was a Representative in the General Assembly since his election district was located South of my voting address, but I was able to vote for his congressional and gubernatorial opponents. Of course, Blagojevich won all of those elections.

I was familiar with Blagojevich’s deserved “backbencher” reputation while he was drawing a paycheck from the state legislature. I was also told about his undistinguished stint as an assistant State’s Attorney under Richard M. Daley. Other attorneys assigned to the same courtrooms complained about Blagojevich’s seemingly limitless number of personal days and excused absences.

I first saw Blagojevich upfront and personal at a community forum sometime during 1998. He struck me as an insubstantial hustler on the make. His tendency to engage in political grandstanding was already established by that time. He and his wife, the former Patricia Mell, were also developing a reputation for their expensive tastes and money grubbing ways nearly two decades ago.

While the retrial of the former Illinois chief executive is expected to continue for several more days, I have pretty much made up my mind already. Blagojevich is entitled to whatever prison sentence that he receives.

I believe he will be convicted.

With that as my preface, I will say one thing and one thing only in Blagojevich’s defense or in mitigation of his alleged crimes. Contrary to appearances and the protestations of so many leading Democrats, Blagojevich did not act alone.

It is a repeated refrain when the federal prosecutors secure indictments (it is invariably the US Attorney doing the heavy lifting since the Cook County State’s Attorney’s public corruption unit acts so infrequently as to be effectively neutered at all times) that all of the other members of the political clubhouse run for cover and avoid the scandal tainted politicians. I remember quite clearly how former Alderman Burton Natarus of the 42nd Ward tried to tell reporters that he was not “a Mickey Segal guy” when the political powerbroker was put on trial for mismanaging funds from the Near North Insurance business. It was too comical to be believed.

Blagojevich has become the political scapegoat for all of the sins of omission and commission that have occurred in Illinois since 2002. None of the leading politicians who enabled him (father-in-law Mell, former campaign chairman Madigan, committeeman Banks, among others) know him today. Blagojevich must have been a sui generis politician. To stand the observation reported by the late Milt Rakove on its head, Blagojevich was the one and only great nobody that nobody sent.

Are we to believe that no one assisted Blagojevich when he ousted former State Representative Myron Kulas in 1992 following legislative redistricting? Likewise, are we supposed to believe that no deal was struck for John Fritchey to succeed Blagojevich in the General Assembly in return for the support of the 36th Ward Regular Democratic Organization as Blagojevich sought the nomination to challenge US Representative Michael P. Flanagan in the Fifth Congressional District in 1996?

Today, many of Blagojevich’s former friends and playmates deny knowing him or they are keeping their distance. Erstwhile friends such De Leo, Saviano, Quinn and so many others have vanished or suffered selective forms of political amnesia. Another former member of the Illinois State Senate, Barack H. Obama, used to count Blagojevich and the political wheeler dealer Antonin “Tony” Rezko as his friends and allies. President Obama, US Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-9th) and the newly elected Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel used to actively court Blagojevich when they were attempting to climb the rungs of the political ladder or seeking favors. Emanuel and his family members actually contributed to Blagojevich’s campaign fund on a reliable basis. Schakowsky, herself, sought to be named to the US Senate vacancy.

These opportunistic relationships soured when Obama’s career eclipsed that of Blagojevich and when the governor was impeached and removed from office. Nevertheless, there are numerous examples of both Emanuel and Obama trying to elbow their way into photographs in order to stand in close proximity to Blagojevich when they were absolute beginners and he was the established careerist. Emanuel actually succeeded Blagojevich in Congress in 2002 when the Elvis impersonator vacated the seat to run for the Governor’s Mansion. During that campaign and in the early stages of his Congressional career, Emanuel was all over Blagojevich like white on rice. Both men lived within one mile of each other in Chicago, an easy jog for Blago, until Emanuel foolishly made an estimated $80,000.00 legal mistake and rented his principal residence to tenants in 2009. In any event, it was not an accident that Emanuel was chosen to serve as the President-elect’s emissary when suggestions were made as to suitable appointees to the vacant US Senate seat. Blago and Rahm were political allies at one time and their relationship was viewed as the closest to being salvageable before the US Attorney came a calling.

Blagojevich was worse than a farce as governor, but it is a complete stretch to lay all of the financial misfortunes that befell Illinois during his administration solely at his doorstep. That diminishes the shared responsibility of the Democratic majorities in both houses of the General Assembly. Illinois is paying a high price for allowing an inexperienced and materialistic individual to serve as governor. It is a lesson that the nation is learning as well for choosing an inept and largely inexperienced ideologue to serve as its chief executive. According to some sources, no less an authority than Valerie Jarrett has suggested that serving as president is Mister Obama’s first actual full-time job.

I anticipate that someday in the near future Blagojevich will be fitted with an orange or khaki colored prison jump suit. It will be quite a come down from his expensively tailored suits, but it is what is. Nevertheless, Illinois voters would be well served to reject the conventional wisdom that our state plummeted to the depths solely on account of Blagojevich and no one else. Blagojevich is on trial alone, but he did not act alone.

Blagojevich’s career, like George H. Ryan’s career, is merely a symptom of the larger disease of political corruption that infects our state. Many of the political parasites that enabled Blagojevich’s meteoric rise from mediocrity or prospered when he put the state up for sale are still at large.

It would be a mistake to accept the insincere party line that convicting Blagojevich alone will put an end to the systemic corruption of one party rule.

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Daniel J. Kelley is a regular contributor to “The Chicago Daily Observer.”