Dick Mell offers $1 million to potential challenger

Jeff at Public Affairs says:

Rich Miller, in today’s [Friday, March 4th] Capitol Fax reports the rumor that State Rep. Jack Franks (Jack!) is being offered a million dollars by Ald. Mell to run against Mell’s Hot Rod son-in-law, Gov. Blagojevich. That is, Mell is alleged to have said he would raise that much for Jack!

Franks sorta makes sense as a Dem gubernatorial because he's a hard-nosed campaigner from a GOP-leaning part of the state. He's also a competent legislator.

I assumed Madigan wouldn't want him to do this because the Dems would have a hard time keeping the seat.

But if Mell enticed Franks into the race Dick could stick it to his son-in-law and Madigan at the same time.

I don't want to make too much of my brief encounters with the governor's father-in-law, but I got the impression he really intensely dislikes Michael Madigan.