The rich irony of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan denouncing somebody for attempting to be a "king-maker" is so obvious and laughable that I can't help but wonder why a guy who's been a take-no-prisoners king-maker himself for so long in this state would ever think of saying such a thing.

You may already know the story. The Better Government Association and the Chicago Sun-Times took a look at some of Madigan's campaign petition-passers to see if they had government jobs.

What they found wasn't surprising at all. Seventeen of 30 people who passed Madigan's nominating petitions worked for the government. Another 12 had at one time worked for the government.

Let's take a quick look at the campaign-finance disclosure reports filed last week by some of the statewide candidates.

• Bill Brady. It goes without saying that the $66,104 Brady reported raising during the third quarter was beyond pathetic. But here's how bad the Republican gubernatorial candidate's performance really was: Even Sheila Simon outraised him. The notoriously poor fundraiser Simon pulled in more than $106K during the quarter. And if it weren't for the $200K in leftover funds from his 2010 governor's race, Brady would've reported having just $73K at the end of the quarter. He also spent a bit more than he took in - which isn't very difficult, considering his paltry take.

Governor Pat Quinn refused to say for several days whether he'd support a $1.2-million-a-year tax break for Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) to move 100 jobs out of Decatur and open up a world headquarters and new tech center in Chicago. But last week he made it clear that without pension reform, the ADM proposal would be a nonstarter and he would veto it.

"He won't even consider the ADM bill much less get on board when pension reform has not been done," a Quinn spokesperson told me.

"The best way to help jobs in Illinois is to do pension reform," Quinn himself told the Associated Press. "To distract legislators in any way from this issue of a lifetime is just plain wrong."

Quinn didn't say, probably because he wasn't asked, whether he thought a vote on gay marriage during the upcoming fall veto session would also "distract legislators." But a spokesperson later explained that pension reform was vital to the state's economic interests, and gay marriage, while important, was not.

And so the governor has seized yet another political hostage in his quest to ease Illinois' enormous budget problems by reducing pension benefits for public employees and retirees.

For a moment, let's flash back to a poll I commissioned last month. The August 13 Capitol Fax/We Ask America poll surveyed 1,102 likely Republican-primary voters.

The poll found that 74 percent of Republicans wanted GOP gubernatorial candidates to choose a running mate who was "more conservative" than the candidates themselves. Another 18 percent said ideology made no difference, and a mere 7 percent said they wanted a more liberal running mate.

The poll found that 73 percent of Republican women and 75 percent of men wanted a more conservative running mate. Seventy-nine percent of seniors, who tend to dominate GOP primaries, wanted a more rightward pick. Seventy-seven percent of collar-county Republicans, 73 percent of suburban Cook and Downstate Republicans, and 69 percent of Chicago Republicans wanted the candidates to look to their right when picking their lieutenant-governor candidates.

As you probably already know, Illinois changed its laws on running mates. Before, lieutenant governor candidates ran independently in primaries. Now, candidates for governor are required to choose a running mate before they begin circulating nominating petitions.

Fast-forward to today. So far, anyway, the gubernatorial candidate who has by far heeded this poll result the most is state Senator Bill Brady, who was, socially anyway, the most conservative candidate in the race to begin with.