Smash hit

In 1988, he went to a fundraiser for a powerful local alderman called Dick Mell - and met his daughter Patti.

The young lawyer went to work in the alderman’s ward office and wooed Patti with his rendition of Elvis Presley hits - a fact that explains his extravagant hairstyle.

The couple married in 1990. At his father-in-law’s urging, he ran for election as an Illinois state representative from Mr Mell’s political fiefdom in northwest Chicago in 1992. He graduated to the US Congress in 1993, and in 2002 became Illinois governor.

“When he married his daughter, Mell helped him get elected first to the state legislature, then Congress, then as governor,” said Dick Simpson, a former Chicago alderman who is now head of the political science department at the University of Illinois.

“He would not have been able to get elected witout Mell’s machine.” Mrs Blagojevich cast herself in the role of political wife, promoting causes such as literacy and breast-feeding. But privately she profited from her husband’s political career.

An analysis by the Chicago Tribune found that her real estate firm, River Realty, had earned more than $700,000 in commissions since her husband began raising money in 2000 for his first run for governor - with more than 75% of the commissions coming from “clients with connections”.

Her most notorious client was Antoin “Tony” Rezko, the now-convicted political fixer and friend of Mr Obama who was convicted of running “pay-to-play” schemes that required people seeking state business to pay kickbacks in return.

In the FBI transcripts, Mr Blagojevich seeks to get his wife some lucrative corporate directorship in return for naming a particular candidate to the open US Senate seat. He says she should be able to earn $150,000-a-year to alleviate the family’s “financial distress.” Not long after Mr Blagojevich was elected governor, Mr Mell denounced him and alleged that he was handing out positions on state boards in return for campaign contributions.

Ironically, it may have been his father-in-law’s comments that brought the original corruption investigation that this week led to the governor’s arrest.

Mr Mell told reporters his daughter had “blinders on” when it came to her husband and that she’d “wake up one day” to understand what he was really like.

The result was a family breach that reportedly left Mr Mell unable to spend time with his two grand-daughters - Amy, now 12, and Annie, 5.

The exact reasons for the split remain obscure. Mr Mell was apparently upset that his son-in-law had used his power as governor to shut down a landfill owned by a cousin of Mr Mell’s wife, saying it had environmental problems. When challenged, Mr Blagojevich said he had the “virility” to stick to his decision.

Political insiders speculate, however, that the landfill row was the result of a more fundamental dispute over power and Mr Blagojevich’s treatment of Patti.

Mr Mell and his daughter reconciled briefly after her mother died two years ago. But Mr Mell admitted, after speaking to Patti following her husband’s arrest this week, that it was the first time he had spoken to her for “quite a while.” “It’s been very difficult; it’s your daughter,” he told the Chicago Sun-Times. “Being estranged from your daughter is not a very pleasant situation.” “She said she’s going through a rough time,” he said. “But she said, as rough as it is, what happened two years ago when her mother died was harder.” Mr Mell’s other daughter, Deborah, a gay rights activist, is also a politician. A recently elected member of the state legislature, she might now have to decide to vote for her brother-in-law’s impeachment.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it,” she said. “I’ve thought about it briefly. That’s not my focus right now.”

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