Governor Bruce Rauner's much-anticipated TV ad isn't as over-the-top negative as many thought it would be.

"Exactly," was the response from a Rauner official I spoke with after watching the ad and making the above observation about its somewhat muted tone.

"There's plenty of time for that if it's necessary," the official added.

After five months, you'd think that the warring parties at the Illinois Statehouse would have learned something about each other. Instead, last week's bitter and divisive House overtime session showed that they still fundamentally misunderstand one another.

What follows are some questions I'm hearing and my own responses.

• From Republicans: Why would the House Democrats propose such a weak workers' compensation reform plan last week when they knew Governor Bruce Rauner wants so much more?

The Democrats' plan didn't contain much real-world progress, and actually regressed in part. Unless you read between the lines. Workers' comp insurance is essentially a no-fault system designed to keep disputes out of the courts. Republicans have for years attempted to insert "causation" into the system to weed out employees whose injuries are mostly not the fault of employers.

But House Speaker Michael Madigan's bill used the term "causal" in relation to a certain kind of injury. This was a pretty good indication that after more than 30 years as speaker, Madigan is moving away from his complete opposition to causation standards.

The speaker appears willing to deal on this topic because he attached his language to a House bill that can now be amended by the Senate. If he'd used a Senate bill, it would've been "take it or leave it."

So build on the causation issue and ignore his other items that set the negotiations back. It's not rocket science.

I spent the better part of last Wednesday asking folks around the Statehouse if they had anything positive to tell me. I went looking for anything that might indicate a silver lining to this increasingly nasty spring legislative session.

Mostly, people just laughed at me.

Other than some individual personal developments, there just wasn't much positivity around. The governor's chief of staff, Mike Zolnierowicz, and his incomparable wife Barret were about to have a new baby. They're great people and that's wonderful news, but it also means that "Z" was not going to be able to work on solving the problems for a few days.

A gaming-expansion bill appeared to be progressing. But I'm told the governor is in no mood to sign it as long as his "Turnaround Agenda" is being ignored by the majority Democrats.

The Senate Democrats, meanwhile, were expected to move legislation to help Chicago out of its horrific fiscal mess, but there's still the problem with the governor's refusal to do anything for the Democrats until he gets what he wants.

So I came up with nothing.

I recently obtained a document distributed by the governor's office detailing the membership list and meeting times and locations of the secret state legislative "working groups."

The governor's office has insisted that not only should legislators dummy up about what goes on at the groups' meetings - which are designed to forge compromises on the governor's "Turnaround Agenda" - but also that outsiders should not even know the membership of the groups or when and where they're getting together.

That's pretty ridiculous. Many moons ago, I began writing about private legislative caucus meetings. That didn't endear me to the powers that be, but I thought the meetings were too important to the Statehouse process to ignore. I still think that, although caucus meetings are somewhat less important these days.

So I exerted a bit of effort and eventually scored the governor's document.

The working group tasked with hammering out a potential tax hike is so secret that its very existence would not be confirmed by members I contacted. Legislators were reportedly warned by the governor's office that if any word leaked about the group, Governor Bruce Rauner would refuse to increase taxes.

Yep, he's a control freak.