Illinois Tuesday Morning Roundup

Gubernatorial Race

Incumbent Democratic Governor Pat Quinn gets endorsed by unions…just as the state of Illinois comes to an agreement with them to avoid layoffs. WBEZ wonders if it’s pay-to-play politics. Gee, you think?
And Governor Quinn also announces a new pork-barreling infrastructure project.
Meanwhile, Progress Illinois and the Journal Standard are very bitter that Republican Bill Brady won’t give them a budget platform to misread and tar as extremist.

Senatorial Race

Mark Kirk complains about voter apathy in the Senate race, but thinks the race will get much hotter when voters realize the U.S. Senate is actually at stake, guys. Seriously.
Meanwhile, Kirk backtracks on TARP, saying he now wants it returned, while Alexi Giannoulias accuses him of flip-flopping on the issue.
Hey, at least Kirk’s tough on crime — he doesn’t want Illinois’s disgraced former Republican governor released from prison early.
Meanwhile, The Hill complains that no one in this election cycle (Mark Kirk included) is honest about their resume.
But whatever his resume says, Kirk definitely wants tax cuts.
By contrast, Alexi Giannoulias seems to think it’s a good idea to trot out fossils to prove how forward-thinking he is:

A feminist icon is coming to Chicago to support Alexi Giannoulias’s bid for U.S. Senate.

Gloria Steinem, a leader in the women’s liberation movement in the 1960s and ’70s, will headline a lunch fundraiser for the Democratic candidate this Wednesday, according to the Chicago Sun-Times’ Lynn Sweet.