* It just never ends. The Sun-Times reports today that Ald. Dick Mell was paid $100,000 to work for Democrat Blair Hull’s ill-fated 2004 US Senate primary campaign. This is news partly because Mell was paid through Fred Lebed’s consulting group. Lebed, of course, is US Sen. Roland Burris’ longtime advisor, who recently severed his ties to Burris…

There appears to be nothing illegal about that [Mell] arrangement. But — apparently in the wake of Blagojevich’s Dec. 9 arrest — federal authorities have asked questions about it, according to John Ruff, a Lebed and Burris associate who recently broke ties with both men because of the furor over Burris’ Senate appointment by Blagojevich.

Ruff said that, in conversations with Lebed in late January, Lebed told him he’d been asked to provide documents to a federal grand jury to explain payments his company made to Mell.

The feds sure are spreading the net wide, aren’t they? Perhaps this is why…

…Lebed or Hull might have had dealings with Blagojevich in October 2008. The ex-governor’s daily log for Oct. 17 includes an entry: “Blair Hull in Chicago October 28-31. Requesting follow-up mtg. Contact: . . . Fred Lebed.”

Mell got $100K for his Hull work, according to the story, and that was just about all of the money that Lebed’s consulting firm received from the Hull campaign…

Federal election records show [Lebed’s] Prairie Group was paid $120,000 by Hull’s campaign and that Lebed got another $13,102 on top of that.

Weird, that.

* Meanwhile, the Politico offers up one reason why Bill Daley is considering a US Senate bid…

More important, the National Republican Senatorial Committee is already connecting Giannoulias to Blagojevich, alleging that his family’s bank made numerous loans to indicted Blagojevich fundraiser Tony Rezko and to individuals connected to organized crime. The NRSC also alleges that Rezko urged Blagojevich to appoint Giannoulias’ brother to the Illinois Finance Authority Board.

Those vulnerabilities have emboldened Daley to take a serious look at running. Supporters of Daley, who currently serves as Midwest director for JPMorgan Chase, say he would offer a clean break from the era of Blagojevich and Burris.

On the other hand…

Daley’s detractors argue that his family connections to the Chicago political machine — his father was the late Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley — would put him at a disadvantage when Illinois voters are looking for distance from the machine mentality that has long defined the state’s politics.

They point to Cook County Commissioner Mike Quigley’s primary victory in last Tuesday’s special election to succeed Rahm Emanuel. Quigley, an outspoken critic of patronage and waste in county government, won the special election touting a message of reform.

“The machine’s old, and the machine’s rusty. Maybe because he’s a Daley, he does this differently. It’s a different world now,” said one Illinois-based Democratic operative.

Not to mention that Daley’s bank got $25 billion in TARP funds, a program which is hugely unpopular with the public and doesn’t appear to have worked as advertised by the Bush administration.

* Related…

* Ex-Illinois Governor Blagojevich Loses Bid to Oust Prosecutor

* Move primary election back to March — or leave it alone

* Bad news for country cousins?