“The governor has linked things together,” Senate President John Cullerton said at a speech to the City Club of Chicago back in January. “We don’t have a budget because he’s got his Turnaround Agenda. So I can link things together, too.”

Cullerton was referring to his threat to not pass any funding for K-12 education until school-funding reform is addressed. Despite being repeatedly blasted by the governor and the Senate Republican leader for planning to hold schools “hostage” to “bail out” Chicago’s school system with his funding-reform plan, Cullerton has not publicly backed down from his statement.

And I happen to believe that Cullerton’s direct and deliberate threat, perhaps more than anything else, has pushed Statehouse types to try to reach a conclusion to this long, crazy impasse.

It’s almost impossible to make a deal with somebody who won’t accept reality. And that’s been the case in Illinois for more than a year, as Governor Bruce Rauner has made one politically unrealistic demand after another while refusing to negotiate a budget until those demands are met, all the while blaming the entire impasse on the intransigence of House Speaker Michael Madigan.

Because the public debate is so wrapped up in partisanship and ideology, it’s been tough for a large segment of the population to wrap its collective mind around what’s really been going on. Many see this fight as the “new, good” Rauner versus the “old, bad” Madigan. While that argument certainly has plenty of merit, it’s not nearly the entire story.

It takes two to tango, and the truth is and has always been that Rauner doesn’t even have enthusiastic support among legislative Republicans for a big chunk of his Turnaround Agenda, particularly those demands opposed by labor unions. His complete agenda cannot pass both legislative chambers no matter who the House speaker is.

After what happened the day after the March primary election, however, Rauner’s obvious inability to accept some stark political realities might finally help more folks understand what the rest of us have been seeing for the past year or more.

Illinois Republicans have long complained that House Speaker Michael Madigan’s campaign organization doesn’t just beat you; it destroys you. Madigan doesn’t set out to merely win; he wants to make sure he doesn’t ever have to deal with you again.

Madigan’s own Democratic primary race was a good example. He posted yard signs all over his district urging his constituents to vote against “convicted felon Jason Gonzales,” and his cable-TV and direct-mail ads ceaselessly pounded home that very same message. His captains also reportedly had volunteers holding those signs at the entrance to voting locations.

Gonzales is, indeed, a convicted felon. But that happened two decades ago, and he was pardoned by former Democratic Governor Pat Quinn. To hear the Madigan campaign tell it, however, you’d think the guy just walked out of prison.

Or take a look at what Madigan did to Katelyn Hotle. The House speaker’s operation dropped at least nine negative mailers on the little-known, lightly funded candidate in the Quad Cities-area Democratic primary to replace retiring state Representative Pat Verschoore (D-Milan). The gist of the attacks was that Hotle, a Rock Island city-council member, profited personally from her shoddy government service, but none of it was true.

They also smeared Hotle in the media for being a “plant” of Governor Bruce Rauner. Why? The only real explanation is that she was the lone female in a four-way primary, so she could do well on demographics alone and they had to take her out. For good.

A name from the past has been leading the charge for Jason Gonzales’ Democratic-primary campaign against Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan.

Blair Hull, the hugely wealthy but unsuccessful 2004 Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, directly accounts for $100,000 of the $300,000 that the Illinois United for Change PAC has raised since late January (and maybe double that, because it’s unclear who controls a company responsible for another $100,000). The independent-expenditure committee has so far reported spending money only on Gonzales.

I was able to reach Hull through an intermediary to ask him why he decided to get involved against his fellow Democrat Madigan in the primary. He would only communicate by e-mail, and didn’t respond to a follow-up question.

Hull said he believes Gonzales gives the state “an opportunity for a fresh start” and predicted his candidate, an entrepreneur who received an MBA from MIT, would be a “true statesman” in the General Assembly.