At Thursday’s Chicago Democratic fundraiser, it was President Obama, Alexi Giannoulias, who is seeking the Senate seat formerly held by the chief executive, and piles of cash. It was just like the good old days, except for one thing: If only Tony Rezko could have been there. When Obama showed up to raise money for Giannoulias’ Senate campaign, the two probably didn’t discuss the imprisoned Rezko, the subsidized housing developer and felon who was a business associate of both. Both men were responsible for providing millions in cash to Rezko’s crooked enterprises, too.

As a state senator, Obama thrived on Rezko’s campaign cash while promoting housing programs that made him and other government-subsidized developers wealthy at the taxpayers’ expense: state tax credits, rent and development subsidies, grants, state loans, exemptions from local ordinances, and mandates that Illinois municipalities build more subsidized housing. At one point, Obama even wrote a letter to Chicago and Illinois officials on Rezko’s behalf, urging them to give Rezko and a business partner (another Obama friend) a $14 million construction loan that came with $885,000 in cash for the two developers. The project in question wasn’t even in Obama’s state Senate district. For his part, Rezko took the money and let his subsidized slums go to seed. He later made Obama’s purchase of a gorgeous Chicago mansion possible when he agreed to buy an adjacent lot that the seller insisted on unloading along with the house.