It's not every day that a group almost nobody has ever heard of gives $175,000 to a single state legislative candidate. But that's just what happened on October 7, when Stand for Children Illinois PAC handed over that gigantic check to Republican Ryan Higgins, who is vying to replace retiring state Representative Paul Froehlich (D-Schaumburg).

In fact, Stand for Children's $175,000 check represents the largest single contribution to a legislative candidate - other than from a caucus leader or a party organization, or candidate loans to themselves - since contribution records were put online 16 years ago. It's probably a good bet that the group's contribution to Higgins is the single largest "outside" legislative campaign check in modern Illinois history.

While the Republicans say the pollsters are contacting the wrong people, the fact remains that three polls released last week had the Illinois governor's race within 2 percentage points. And five polls released in the past month have shown it to be a single-digit race.

The Chicago Tribune's pollster had Democratic Governor Pat Quinn leading Republican state Senator Bill Brady 39-38 last week, which is a narrower margin than its 5-point Brady lead a month ago. A CNN/Time poll had Brady up by 2, and a Democratic Governor's Association poll had Brady up by one. Public Policy Polling had Brady with a 7-point lead.

The Republicans say the "universe" is skewed on all these polls. They believe that Republicans could actually outnumber Democrats come Election Day by a narrow margin. At the very least, they say, those other polls just skew too far Democratic.

If the Republicans are right, it would be the first time their party would outnumber or come close to outnumbering Democrats in any Illinois election in a very long time. This is a weird year, so nobody really knows who's correct at the moment. Still, you need to keep the GOP's strong objections very much in mind as we head into the final weeks of this campaign.

In conjunction with an article on ballot access in Illinois, the River Cities' Reader sent out an e-mail survey to third-party officials and candidates. Below are the unedited responses we received covering thee parties: Constitution, Green, and Libertarian.

Our survey included one overarching question: Is the Illinois ballot-access system fair and reasonable? If not, how would you like to see it changed?

We also included five more-specific questions:

1) Is the 25,000-signature threshold for new political parties a reasonable standard? If not, what number of signatures would you prefer?

2) Do you support a filing-fee alternative to petition signatures? If so, what amount would be reasonable?

3) In your experience, does the Illinois State Board of Elections handle petition challenges fairly and equitably? Please elaborate on any experiences good or bad.

4) What changes, if any, would you like to see made to the petition-challenge process?

5) Have the time and resources required to gather signatures and fight petition challenges hampered your party's ability to campaign, either this year or in the past? If so, in what ways?

The union that represents thousands of state and local government employees, AFSCME, was one of the bigger Democratic campaign contributors in the final six months of the 2008 campaign. But this year the union will be sitting out almost all of the Illinois House Democrats' top races.

The union met in Springfield several days ago to formalize its endorsements. They announced backing for Governor Pat Quinn, Alexi Giannoulias for U.S. Senate, Judy Baar Topinka for comptroller, and Robin Kelly for treasurer. But their legislative endorsements - and their lack of endorsements - were the most interesting.