If you wanted to get an idea of how downright negative the governor's race will be this fall, all you had to do was hang around Republican Day at the Illinois State Fair last week and check your e-mail from the governor's campaign.

One speaker after another ripped into the Democrats during the Republicans' annual event. The speakers focused mainly on Governor Rod Blagojevich and the harm he has allegedly done to Illinois.

Rod Blagojevich and Judy Baar Topinka don’t agree on much, but their campaigns concurred last week that Governor Blagojevich is leading in the polls.

The Blagojevich campaign says its latest poll shows the Democratic governor leading the Republican treasurer 47-31 – a seriously large advantage. Topinka’s campaign has Blagojevich ahead 44-37 – a far narrower margin.

Meanwhile, the latest poll from an independent source, The Rasmussen Report, had Blagojevich leading 45-34, which is about right in the middle of the two candidates’ poll results. Still, Topinka’s polling during the spring primary matched up almost exactly with the Chicago Tribune polls, which turned out to be pretty accurate come primary day.

I'm not a big fan of third-party candidates.

It's not that I'm ecstatic about the two-party system. Too many "mainstream" candidates are poll-driven media robots to the point that they make me a little batty.

I wouldn't mind having another choice, if only to force the other candidates to stop acting like automatons and start speaking like human beings again.

The problem is that third-party candidates are usually a bit, um, goofy. Two words: Ross Perot. Need I say more?

For years, the governor and his top aides have claimed that politics never touch state hiring.

They swore up and down that they follow the law whenever they fill mid- to low-level civil-service positions, and claimed they don't even know the names of the people who were applying for the jobs.