"If you wish to be a critic of me, then you will blame everything that's happened in the state for the last several years on me. Some do that, some people do that. I don't choose to be so negative," Madigan said last fall. "I choose to look at the problems we are looking at today, work to be reasonable, work to be moderate, work not to be extreme, bring people together and work for a solution to problems. But if people wish to be critics, then they will be critics."