Gubernatorial Race

Incumbent Democrat Governor Pat Quinn starts to panic over his inability to crack 40 percent against Bill Brady:

While in Peoria last week, Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn ripped on his Republican opponent, state Sen. Bill Brady, on a number of levels.
He said Brady’s commercials depict Quinn as the bad guy and give the illusion that all the state’s problems began when he inherited the governor’s seat on Jan. 29, 2009. In fact, Quinn said he took office at the worst time in Illinois history and restored integrity to the governor’s office. […]
He called Brady’s approach to “dime and a dollar” budgeting “phoney baloney.” “Brady will lead our state to nuclear winter,” he said.

In fact, it’s gotten so bad that people are wondering if Barack Obama’s home state might be going purple:

Polls in recent months have hinted at a different palette:
• Obama’s job-approval rating in Illinois, according to a Chicago Tribune poll taken earlier this month, hovers just over the halfway mark, at 51 percent — still well above some of the numbers he’s seeing nationally, but more than 10 points down from the support he enjoyed here two years ago.
• The race for Obama’s open U.S. Senate seat has been neck-and-neck for months, with the Republican, U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk, edging in polls over Democratic state treasurer and Obama protégé Alexi Giannoulias.
• Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn, a fixture in and around progressive Illinois politics since the 1970s, is badly trailing his conservative GOP challenger, state Sen. Bill Brady of Bloomington, despite the fact that Brady won his party’s crowded February primary with just one-fifth of Republican votes. The latest Rasmussen Reports poll has Brady up 50 percent to 37 percent.

Meanwhile, the Springfield State Journal-Register just wants to know what on earth both candidates plan to do with the budget.

At least Pat Quinn has one idea — he wants to pay people to buy green laundry machines!

Senate

The knives are out for real this time, as Kirk is set to hit Giannoulias with several new attack ads that Giannoulias blames on Karl Rove.

But of course, Giannoulias has problematic tactics of his own. Like, say, a fundraiser with mob ties.