No more Blago blag, but the next best thing

The New York Times has an article by Susan Saulny on the Blagojevich fallout:

Temperate, unfussy and, at times, so independent that he can be out of the loop, the 41st governor of Illinois could not be any more unlike the man he replaced, the attention-loving showman, Rod R. Blagojevich, who was removed from office on Thursday. And that has a lot of people in Illinois breathing a sigh of relief.
“What you see is what you get,” said one of Mr. Quinn’s longtime allies, State Representative John Fritchey, a Democrat. “He is an apolitical creature in a political world.” Already, in his first hours as governor, Mr. Quinn was charting his own course: in a series of interviews and public appearances he promised an honest, transparent and accessible administration. He reached out to include in his decision-making some of the state’s other elected officers who had long been shut out by Mr. Blagojevich. And he signed an executive order that made an official state entity out of a reform commission he established as lieutenant governor last month.
Unlike Mr. Blagojevich, who disdained the capital and lived in Chicago, Mr. Quinn, a divorced father of two adult sons, plans to move into the governor’s mansion. That alone signals a whole new day. “He’s the anti-Blagojevich, for sure,” said State Representative Jack Franks, a Democrat.
Mr. Blagojevich is, apparently, not a fan. “He’s going to raise taxes on people,” the former governor said of Mr. Quinn on Thursday after being ousted from office. “He’s going to hurt people. And that’s part of the deal here. Get me out of the way. He’s going to raise the income tax on people by Memorial Day. And he’ll probably allow a sales tax on gas, too.” But even Mr. Blagojevich vouched for Mr. Quinn’s straight as an arrow reputation. Asked whether Mr. Quinn was corrupt, Mr. Blagojevich said simply, "No." Still, this being Illinois, Mr. Quinn probably should not grow accustomed to such political generosity.
Although far from a political novice, Mr. Quinn is untested at meeting the kinds of challenges before him now: a crisis of confidence in government, a $4 billion budget gap, and a record level of unpaid bills to day care and health care providers and others. And he knows it: “This is not a garden variety crisis,” Mr. Quinn said in an interview. “It will be a test for all of us, starting with me, to keep our eyes on the common good.”
Since that morning, at 6:45, when Mr. Quinn said he got a call about the arrest, life has not been the same. “It’s a bit surreal, when you think about it,” he said.
Mr. Quinn said he was not sure whether he would run in 2010, when Mr. Blagojevich’s term ends. As it was, he had not decided what to do when his term as lieutenant governor was up.

Rico says he wishes Quinn well; being the governor of any state is hard, but Illinois, with all the Chicago machine politics, is even harder...