The Statehouse is buzzing yet again with talk of a new gaming expansion plan. This time, the players say, they have their acts together. Really.

I'm always pretty skeptical of these big legislative pushes. Expanding gaming is one of the most difficult things to do. A big reason is that there's so much money involved with gaming that people get too greedy. Eventually, the bill suffocates under its own weight. Too many goodies are added to the Christmas tree.

The only time this ever works is when all the legislative leaders and the governor are pulling together. That's how gaming was expanded under Governor George Ryan and that's how video poker was legalized last year under Governor Pat Quinn. Everybody at the top, Democrat and Republican, worked together to get it done.

Jerry Clarke is not easily ruffled. Not only has he seen it all in his years running campaigns in Illinois, but he's served several tours of duty in Iraq as a combat helicopter pilot.

But I thought Jerry might actually faint last week when I called him with an update on his candidate's latest piece of legislation. Clarke is running state Senator Bill Brady's gubernatorial campaign.

Brady's bill would undo a compromise worked out over two years to stop the practice of mass euthanasia of dogs and cats. The animals were often put into auto-exhaust gas chambers and killed en masse, sometimes allegedly by so-called "puppy mills" when the animals weren't sold. The gas chambers were deemed cruel because it could take as long as 30 minutes for the animals to die, and some even survived the ordeal.

Decisions made by a governor in a far-away but strikingly similar state might actually influence our election right here in Illinois.

Just a week or so after Governor Pat Quinn lays out his state budget blueprint next month, recently elected New Jersey governor Chris Christie will do the same.

Illinois and New Jersey have more in common than you might think. They're not exactly alike by any means, but they're both Democratic-leaning states that have elected Republican governors in the past. They both have unemployment troubles, although New Jersey is better off than us right now, and they both have horrible state-budget problems.

Illinois' budget crisis is somewhat worse than New Jersey's, but they're similar enough that the two governors' budget plans will undoubtedly be compared. Illinois' budget deficit for next fiscal year, which starts in July, is projected at somewhere around $13 billion. New Jersey's upcoming red-ink total will be about $11 billion. The two states' operating budgets are about the same size.

One of the biggest doubts about state Senator Bill Brady's gubernatorial campaign - assuming he survives a potential recount of the Republican primary - is whether he can transform himself from a primary candidate into a serious general-election candidate.

Like most members of the state House and Senate, Brady has never once faced a real general-election opponent.

Brady, of Bloomington, focused almost solely on his Downstate base and barely campaigned at all in the suburbs during his Republican gubernatorial bid, so independent suburban women might as well be foreigners to him. Since Illinois is such a "blue" state, he'll have to convince thousands of Democratic-leaning voters to cross over for him.

Every night before an election day, I spend four or five hours on the phone with people I trust asking what they think will happen.

There are always a couple of races that will have them stumped, but I've never seen everybody perplexed about so many outcomes until the night before last week's election.

Take, for instance, the Democratic gubernatorial primary.