More than 33 years and 1,600 miles separate Dan Walker from his days in the governor’s mansion in Springfield. Yet he’s bracing to have his name dragged into the news again when another federal jury renders another verdict in another corruption trial of another former governor of Illinois.

Whether Rod Blagojevich is acquitted or convicted at the conclusion of ongoing deliberations, sidebars will tick off the roster of our former chief executives who have found themselves in serious trouble with the law since 1970: George Ryan (currently serving six years in prison), Otto Kerner (sentenced to three years ) and Walker (sentenced to seven).

Walker (pictured right in 1993) stands to get special notice because of the ways in which he and Blagojevich were alike: Both were charismatic Democrats with a taste for the high life and barely concealed presidential ambitions. They ran as reformers, but their confrontational, occasionally sanctimonious leadership styles put them at odds with many other leaders, including fellow Democrats, and prevented them from being particularly effective in office.

 But Walker argues, convincingly, that these similarities are superficial and that it’s unfair to include him in the crowded rogues gallery labeled “Corrupt Ex-Governors of Illinois.”