What's the Obama doing in the middle of a bitter Illinois state rep race?

Crain's Chicago Business reports:

Presidents of the United States give State of the Union speeches. They send bombers to Libya, unveil billion-dollar job-stimulus plans and select Supreme Court nominees.

They don't endorse candidates for state representative. At least, not very often.

But the Chicagoan who is president did just that today, stepping right into the middle of a hugely expensive and bitterly divisive local contest, a race whose outcome may well determine whether Gov. Bruce Rauner or Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan runs Illinois government.

Neither the White House nor the Democratic National Committee is saying anything about why President Barack Obama agreed to star in a last-minute $400,000 TV and radio ad blitz on behalf of state rep hopeful Juliana Stratton in the heavily minority district. (You can check out the 30-second spot at the bottom of this story.) She's running against incumbent Rep. Ken Dunkin, the guy who defected from Madigan's super-majority, erasing the speaker's ability to override gubernatorial vetoes.

Maybe it's personal. Maybe it has to do with bigger, national battles between liberal Democrats such as Obama and conservative Republicans like Rauner. Maybe it's payback for old favors.

But the decision to intervene came directly from the White House, multiple sources tell me, and just about everyone in politics thinks Madigan had something to do with it.

As a state lawmaker and later U.S. senator here, Obama made no waves for establishment figures like Madigan and Mayor Richard M. Daley. They always sort of moved in separate orbits—respectful, but not the best of buds. Obama was closest to then-Senate President Emil Jones.

But Madigan has done Obama a few favors through the years, moving up the 2008 presidential primary to help then-candidate Obama and more recently passing legislation to clear the way for Obama's library to be built in a Chicago public park.

You mean Barack Obama doesn't levitate above sleazy Illinois politics? You mean Barack Obama is part of the corrupt Cook County Democrat Machine? Barack Obama (Democrat-Status Quo in Illinois).