Charlie LeDuff: When Will Bob Go?

DETROIT (myFOXDetroit.com) – Bob Ficano is Bobbing in a sea of denial.

Nobody operating outside the Fort Guardian bunker seems to want Ficano around but the king refuses to see it.

Prominent business people are complaining that no business is getting done because the hounds of the FBI are sniffing over every deal.

Prominent business people who already have deals with the county are hiding in their badger holes lest they draw the attention of the Feds – or worse – the jackals of the media.

Top executives with the State Democratic Party have made overtures to the embattled county executive that it is time to go.

So does he go? Yes he does. He goes to the state of the state address last month and sits behind the governor’s family.

“He is the Wayne county executive,” said a prominent Michigan Democrat with ties to Washington D.C. “But it was the epitome of poor taste to make himself a photo-op, you know, considering everything.” Bob has become so toxic that now even the president of the United States refuses to bee seen with him.

The POTUS’s people have made it known to Michigan Democrats that Ficano is not to be presented for any photo opportunities with the president. He is not to appear on the same stage.

The fact is Obama’s people would prefer it that Bob wasn’t even in the same zip code when the president came to town.

When Obama came to Ann Arbor last week, Bob wasn’t there. Bob’s people seem unaware of the presidential dis. “That’s absolutely false,” said Brooke Blackwell, the woman with the unenviable job of serving as Bob’s mouth piece.

Apparently the president isn’t the only one who doesn’t want to be friends with Bob. And for the first time in his long life in the public eye, Bob is learning that politics are a fickle thing.

When he appeared before a usually-friendly gathering of ministers in Detroit earlier this week, he was peppered with questions of the Wayne County scandal. Bob dodged the questions and slunk away.

Then consider this. Bob raised nearly a half-million dollars in campaign money last year, making him the biggest fundraiser in Michigan. But since September, when the money scandals broke, Bob hasn’t raised a single penny.

And as the not-so-old saying goes: a politician without money is a corpse.