There's been some talk about changing Illinois law so that Barack Obama's vacant seat in the U.S. Senate could be filled through a special election - instead of through appointment by the Governor.

The bankrupt and the maybe soon-to-be-bankrupt media companies seem to really love the idea. Big elections are good for the advertising cash flow and in Illinois they've mostly been missing out on the presidential campaigns.

I would say I'm for more democracy, any time, any place, for any reason.

Unfortunately, we're still stuck with a State GOP Chairman who can't say the same. In Andy McKenna, Jr., the "opposition party" in Illinois is saddled with possibly the single worst person to now be championing fair and open elections. McKenna is the last person in Illinois who should be throwing mud at other politicians or riding around on a high horse preaching about real democracy.

We just saw the conclusion of what was arguably the most important presidential election of our lifetime. The campaign was a high energy rollercoaster that lasted nearly two years. Both the Republicans and Democrats had exciting primary battles prior to the general election campaign.

During this time our fearless State GOP Chairman was nearly nowhere to be found. McKenna never lifted a finger in defense of John McCain or Sarah Palin. When some terrified Republican candidates even opportunistically gave aid-and-comfort to Obama during their Illinois campaigns, McKenna never said a peep.

Neither Obama nor McCain even bothered to campaign in Illinois of course. McKenna had our State GOP so in-the-tank for our state's native son, Obama volunteers were free to flood to neighboring states. McKenna deserves some real blame for even hard-core Red States like Indiana flipping into the Obama win column.

But Rod Blagojevich gets arrested a couple of weeks ago and McKenna decides to emerge from the tall grass. We weren't surprised. This is a guy who has always been about the glom-on.

Let's put the cheap talk aside. What is McKenna's actual record when it comes to pro-democracy reform?

Well he still opposes real elections in his own organization! McKenna not only opposes real elections for the Illinois GOP's 19-member State Central Committee (the committee that chose him as their chairman) - the guy's been repeating the same dishonest talking points for nearly four years now. McKenna's been one of the nastiest stonewallers of the past-due direct election reform.

The Illinois Democrats get to directly elect their 19-member State Central Committee. We also used to, but McKenna's puppeteers selfishly took that right away two decades ago. With power consolidated it's been much easier for a handful to cash-in on the political spoils - never mind how harmful it's been to the Republican Party. A few of the old faces just wanted to be rid of all accountability - and they certainly accomplished that.

McKenna refuses to give the Illinois Republican Party back to Republicans. He only listens to the Boss Hoggs. That's who keeps him propped-up in the Chairman post.

McKenna has made it quite clear he would rather keep chairing meetings of a GOP State Central Committee composed of Chicago Democrats like Skip Saviano. Let's face it, who better to keep a dishonest, ineffective figure like McKenna in power in the first place?

Last year McKenna even went behind the backs of Republicans and schemed with the Democrats in Springfield to stop the direct election reform. McKenna apparently thought his dirty dealings would stay secret (no doubt someone like Tom Double Cross convinced McKenna to play the stooge), but we exposed the betrayal.

As leading GOP reformer State Senator Chris Lauzen said at the time, "If Mr. McKenna wants the power to amend bills in Springfield, he should probably run for the State Senate." Well said. Of course McKenna would never win any post if Republicans had any real say about it.

Moving to this year, McKenna ran the most rigged State GOP Convention in Illinois history (that's truly saying a lot). Much of the nonsense that went on at that embarrassing affair in Decatur in June was again about stopping the direct election reform.

In fact so desperate were McKenna and his handlers to keep Republicans disenfranchised in their own party, the months leading up to the convention were mostly spent making up unethical roadblocks to keep reform-minded Republicans from becoming delegates.

So think about that one. That's being anti-democracy on a whole new level. When you extend the rigging to the method by which delegates are selected, you've got a serious problem.

We and others did what we could to get more delegates to the state convention this year. We had a lot of success. But sadly, thanks to McKenna's destructive activities, around two-thirds of the total delegate and alternate slots available went unfilled. That's a real disgrace.

We've written much more of course about McKenna's destructive work against Republicans. The recap above is just the tip of the iceberg.

Rod Blagojevich is unfit to lead. Unfortunately, so is Andy McKenna, Jr.

What's even sadder is the fact that Blagojevich doesn't hurt the GOP brand - McKenna's awful leadership has and will continue to do so. In fact once Blagojevich is off the field, I honestly don't know what our GOP officials will talk about. Hatred for Blago is clearly the only thing giving some of our poor souls meaning in their political lives.

Read Part 2.

Doug Ibendahl is a Chicago Attorney and a former General Counsel of the Illinois Republican Party. He is Co-Founder of Republican Young Professionals (RYP).