"Because it never was one."

Yesterday, the governor said this:

Blagojevich proposed a $140 million increase for schools next year, to be funded through a potentially risky plan of dipping into some of the more than 400 special funds set up throughout state government that collect cash from licensing fees and fines.

That increase is well below the school-funding increases he signed off on in his first two budgets, and it provoked criticism in the Legislature that Blagojevich was failing to live up to some of his key campaign promises on education -- a claim the governor denied. [...]

When asked after his address why his spending proposal that appeared to fall short of his 51percent pledge did not amount to a broken campaign promise, Blagojevich responded, "Because it never was one."

Not quite. As I pointed out in today's Capitol Fax, this is what candidate Rod Blagojevich said in 2002:

"One way that I plan to increase funding for our schools is by not only continuing Governor Ryan’s commitment to direct 51 percent of new revenues to education funding, but to codify that promise into law."