Obama says he avoided city, state corruption

The Chicago Sun-Times reports:

Clout and corruption scandals that have plagued Chicago and Illinois politics in recent years have not laid a glove on Barack Obama, he told reporters here Wednesday.

"You will recall that for my entire political career here, I was not the the endorsed candidate of any political organization here," the Democratic presidential hopeful said at the Westin Hotel downtown. "I didn't go around wielding a bunch of clout. My reputation in Springfield was as an independent. There is no doubt I had friends and continue to have friends who come out of the more traditional school of Chicago politics but that's not what launched my political career and that's not what I've ever depended on to get elected, and I would challenge any Chicago reporter to dispute that basic fact."

Who would have thought we'd here the Richard Nixon "I'm not a crook" defense so early in Obama's career? For the lack of "independence" as a State Senator: check out these letters Obama wrote to help out the Rezko-Daley operation.