More than a few Statehouse types have been wondering aloud for weeks what Governor Bruce Rauner is up to with his almost daily attacks on organized labor.

His people say that the governor feels "liberated" since the election to speak his mind about a topic that stirs great personal passion in him. He played up the issue during the Republican primary, then all but ran away from it in the general-election campaign, including just a few weeks before Election Day when he flatly denied that "right to work" or anything like that would be among his top priorities.

Yet there he is day after day, pounding away at unions, demanding right-to-work laws, vilifying public-employee unions as corrupt to the point of issuing an executive order barring the distribution of state-deducted employee "fair share" dues to public-worker unions such as AFSCME. The dues are paid by people who don't want to pay full union dues.

Illinois state Senator Daniel Biss appears to be the first Democrat to actively float his name for the 2016 special election for state comptroller.

The Evanston Democrat is known as a policy wonk around the Statehouse, but he's also a prodigious fundraiser, ending the fourth-quarter reporting period with $721,000 in the bank.

The special-election law was passed by the General Assembly in early January - just weeks after the death of Republican Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka. Governor Pat Quinn signed it into law on his way out the door.

If the new law is upheld by the courts (which seems likely but not certain), the state's appointed Republican Comptroller Leslie Munger will have to stand for election in a presidential year.

Since the days of President Bill Clinton, Republicans have been at a distinct disadvantage during presidential-election years. No Republican presidential candidate has won this state since 1988, when George H.W. Bush defeated Michael Dukakis 51-49. Back then, Illinois was considered a "bellwether" state for presidential campaigns. No longer.

A solid majority of Illinoisans wants newly inaugurated Governor Bruce Rauner to find common ground with the Democratic legislative majority rather than be confrontational, a new poll finds. However, most aren't confident that the state's leaders can avoid gridlock, and a majority believes Democrats will be to blame.

In a January 15 We Ask America poll, 1,026 registered voters were asked: "Do you think Republican Governor Bruce Rauner should try to solve the state's problems by working to find common ground with the Democrat-controlled legislature, or should he take a more confrontational approach with the Democrats in trying to solve this state's many problems?"

Sixty-seven percent said they want Rauner to find common ground, while 22 percent said he should take a more confrontational approach. Another 6 percent said he should do both, and 5 percent were unsure.

Eighty-four percent of Democrats and 63 percent of independents wanted him to find common ground, while 76 percent of African Americans and 67 percent of whites said the same.

Every demographic favored the common-ground approach, although only a 49-percent plurality of Republicans did so, as opposed to 36 percent who wanted a more confrontational approach from the GOP governor.

There's little doubt that the late Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka would've continued her straight-talking ways during the administration of Governor-elect Bruce Rauner.

Topinka was good copy for reporters. When she criticized a budget or a fiscal position, we listened.

Other Statehouse denizens respected her fiscal smarts as well. If she attacked a proposal, legislators and everyone else under the dome took note.

Rauner showed great deference to Topinka after the election, officing in her Statehouse suite and giving her chief of staff the authority to hire most of his new employees. I don't think there's any question that he grew to truly admire the quirky redhead.