THE immediate problem for Barack Obama in the Blagojevich scandal is finding a quick and non-controversial way to fill the Illinois Senate seat that his rise to power has made vacant.
As it stands, Illinois law gives Governor Rod Blagojevich sole power to appoint Obama's replacement, a power unchanged by the extraordinary corruption charges laid yesterday by federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.
Obviously, any Blagojevich appointment in the circumstances would be a joke, so the best result will be if the Governor stands down and leaves the task to his lieutenant governor.
If Blagojevich refuses to go, then it will be up to Illinois legal authorities and the state legislature to fashion a solution.
The longer this takes, the more the world will learn about the rotten political culture from which Obama has emerged and the more tainted his January 20 inauguration will be.
But whatever short-term discomfort Obama might feel from a shakedown merchant stupid enough to get caught on a wiretap, it's a walk in the park compared with the dangers ahead.
This was clear when Fitzgerald, a humourless, married-to-the-law zealot who has been likened to Prohibition-era lawman Eliot Ness, made pleas yesterday for anyone with information about corruption in Illinois to come forward.
Not satisfied with getting the Governor, Fitzgerald intends to use the Blagojevich scandal to peel back whatever other layers of political corruption in Illinois he can find.
The pickings are likely to be good. As FBI special agent Robert Grant said yesterday: "If Illinois isn't the most corrupt state in the United States, it's certainly one hell of a competitor."
The more people who come forward, the more leads that Fitzgerald will have to follow and the more likely it is they'll catch crooks ready to rat on other crooks in exchange for leniency.
In this exercise, the prize catch is, of course, Obama, now the most successful politician to emerge from Chicago's notorious "pay-to-play" culture.
Right now, the president-elect is clear. At his press conference, Fitzgerald said there was no evidence of misbehaviour from Obama and the wiretap excerpts he released have Blagojevich using profanities to describe Obama's unwillingness to provide anything other than "appreciation" for services rendered.
Obama was also wise enough to keep well clear of Blagojevich in the presidential campaign. Blagojevich did not speak at the Democrat national convention and was not on stage when Obama celebrated his election victory in Chicago's Grant Park.
Obama also has significant ethics reform credentials from his time in the state legislature.
But Obama did buy his Chicago house with the assistance of corrupt slumlord Tony Rezko, a Blagojevich ally, and he has used his political connections to secure jobs for close friends in Blagojevich's administration.
Further, Obama's chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel is close to John Wyma, Blagojevich's former congressional chief-of-staff and good friend who is reportedly co-operating with Fitzgerald.
It will all come down to where the concentric circles around Blagojevich and Obama overlap, but if his past record is any guide, this is where Fitzgerald, who already has the scalps of terrorists, Mafia kingpins and the likes of Conrad Black to his name, will be at his most aggressive.
Yesterday, the first signs of nervousness appeared when an Obama spokesman said senior adviser David Axelrod had "misspoke" on Fox News a few weeks ago when he said Blagojevich and Obama had discussed the Senate vacancy, something the president-elect now denies.
The haunting of Barack Obama is under way.