Felonious Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich Thinks He Could Oust Mayor

CHICAGO — Illinois' felonious former governor Rod Blagojevich should listen to his wife.

Patty Blagojevich clearly loves him, despite himself. And that's why you should watch the often-cringeworthy docu-series "Being Blago," set to debut Friday on Hulu.

Most of the four-part series produced by ABC Owned Television Stations centers on a fallen political figure desperate for redemption. You can see how badly Rod Blagojevich wants strangers to love him as much as he does a haunting vision of the hero he always wanted to be.

The charismatic former federal prison inmate, sprung early from his public corruption sentence by then-President Donald Trump, seems to believe that if he were just able to win another election, he could prove to the populace that he really was a "f------ good governor."

That delusion manifests on camera when a producer asks, "Do you think you could run for mayor of Chicago tomorrow and win?"

"I think I match up really well with this mayor. I think that's a good race for me," Blagojevich said. "If I were to do it, I could do well in a race like that."

A spokesperson in Mayor Lori Lightfoot's office laughed it off in a statement: "Sounds like he was having a bad hair day. He's demonstrated that he has no idea how to govern, certainly not ethically or legally."

Thankfully, for us and Blagojevich, both state law and his wife — roadblocks he is trying to overturn in court and, seemingly, at home — stand in the way of his trying to prove the mayor wrong.

What Blagojevich is looking for doesn't exist in politics. He won't find it in the public eye.

After watching nearly four hours of familiar news clips and friendly interviews, I'm certain that Blagojevich's best shot at finding peace in his life is listening to the woman who loves him enough to tell him the truth with cameras rolling.

I hope the former governor watches the last bits of episode 4, when Patty Blagojevich — the daughter and sister of former Chicago ward bosses who stuck by him through eight years of incarceration and documentary interviews she didn't want to do — shared her vision of redemption might look like.

"I hope he can get to the point where he doesn't feel that when he meets somebody new, he has to say to them, 'I never let you down. I didn't break any laws,'" she said. "I hope he can get to that point."

When the final credits rolled, I did, too.

Mark Konkol, recipient of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting, wrote and produced the Peabody Award-winning series "Time: The Kalief Browder Story." He was a producer, writer and narrator for the "Chicagoland" docuseries on CNN and a consulting producer on the Showtime documentary "16 Shots."

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