The appearance of the wife of the indicted former Illinois governor on a TV reality show is raising hackles in her home state, observers say.
"I think she should be put in prison," Brian Sperry, 41, a sculptor who lives on Chicago's South Side, told the newspaper. "How about exporting some dignity to America?"
Friend Don Williams, a painter, added that he "had to turn the channel" when he came across Blagojevich's televised eating of a tarantula spider and casting herself as the moral leader of her team of celebrity contestants.
The newspaper said many Illinoisans know Patti Blagojevich as a seemingly willing partner in her husband's alleged efforts to extract campaign contributions in exchange for political favors: She has been served a federal subpoena seeking documents related to him and her real estate deals.
Kent Redfield, a political scientist at the University of Illinois at Springfield, told the Times her television performance "plays a lot better the farther you get from Illinois."
