* AG Madigan caused quite a stir on Meet the Press this morning…

“We have heard that there is a possibility that tomorrow [Gov. Blagojevich] will make an announcement that he will step aside,” Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” today. Blagojevich may take a temporary leave that would keep him on the state payroll because “one of his main concerns is his financial circumstances right now,” she said.

* But the guv’s spokesman shot it down…

Scandal-plagued Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich will not resign Monday, his spokesman said Sunday, but pressure to do so continued to grow on the governor to step aside before he is impeached.

* House GOP Leader Tom Cross was asked on Fox this morning “Do you have any indication at all that that governor is voluntarily going to give up any of his powers?” His answer hit it on the head…

“I don’t think anybody knows that right now. The ability to predict what he may or may not do is almost impossible.”

Cross was also asked why he thinks the governor is still “holding on” to his office…

One, by nature, he’s a fighter. Two, I suspect that he, unlike Eliot Spitzer, has got to figure out how he lives day to day without a job. And third, I suspect he’s also talking to his legal team about how to handle this situation with the U.S. attorney’s office, does he plead, does he not plead, is it best to resign.

* LG Quinn has been all over the map on the Senate replacement…

Lt. Gov. Patrick Quinn today said he would like to appoint at least a temporary senator before voters are given the right to pick a replacement for President-elect Barack Obama.

Speaking on NBC’s “Meet The Press” about allegations Gov. Rod Blagojevich tried to sell Obama’s senate seat, Quinn raised yet another option for finding a replacement for Obama.

“I saw a bill on Friday night that would provide for a temporary appointment to the U.S. Senate until we could have a special election,” Quinn said. “I am concerned that we always have two senators from Illinois representing us in Washington and I think it’s very important that whoever is governor get an opportunity to appoint at least a temporary person until an election could take place.”
Quinn’s comments come after he was criticized last week for pulling a power play by calling on the legislature to impeach Blagoejvich immediately so that he could take the executive reins and name Obama’s replacement.

I hope this isn’t how he plans to govern the state.

* The Republicans are launching a new TV ad and taking Quinn to task…

Illinois Republican Party leaders are launching a television campaign to push their position that a special election should be called to fill the vacancy caused by President-elect Barack Obama’s depature, a move to prevent a Senate appointment by scandal-scarred Gov. Rod Blagojevich or Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn if he takes over the top job. […]

“Blagojevich Democrats like Pat Quinn did nothing to stand up to Governor Blagojevich and his ethical lapses,” said Joe Birkett, the DuPage County state’s attorney.

Birkett questioned why “Pat Quinn stood silent” when they ran together in 2006, when it was known that Blagojevich was the “eye of the storm”

* Over on ABC, John McCain tells the national Republicans to tone it down on the Blagojevich stuff and focus on the ecomony…

Sen. John McCain, D-Ariz., took on his own party this morning for continuing to criticize the way President-elect Barack Obama has handled the scandal surrounding Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

“In all due respect to the Republican National Committee… I think we should try to be working constructively together, not only on an issue such as this, but on the economy stimulus package, reforms that are necessary,” McCain said in an exclusive “This Week” interview with George Stephanopoulos.

RNC Chairman Mike Duncan has released a statement every day since news broke of the Blagojevich corruption investigation calling on the Obama team to reveal all contact that they’ve had with the governor.

* And there was more criticism of Patrick Fitzgerald…

The court in which Mr. Blagojevich is charged, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, has a local rule mandating that a “lawyer shall not make an extrajudicial statement the lawyer knows or reasonably should know is likely to be disseminated by public media and, if so disseminated, would pose a serious and imminent threat to the fairness of an adjudicative proceeding.” The rule goes on to say that a public statement “ordinarily is likely to have such an effect when it refers to” a criminal matter and to “the character or reputation of the accused, or any opinion as to the accused’s guilt or innocence, as to the merits of the case, or as to the evidence in the case.” The American Bar Association’s model rules are similar, if not more restrictive.

Against this backdrop, it is hard to feel comfortable with Mr. Fitzgerald’s remarks in announcing the charges that Mr. Blagojevich’s conduct amounted to a “political corruption crime spree” and “would make Lincoln roll over in his grave,” that “the breadth of corruption laid out in these charges is staggering,” that Mr. Blagojevich “put a ‘for sale’ sign on the naming of a United States senator” and that his conduct was “cynical” and “appalling” and has “taken us to a truly new low.”

[h/t: BB at Illinoize]