Governor Pat Quinn's new TV ad is 60 seconds of one positive message after another.

"Pat Quinn sees problems, takes action, and gets the job done," the ad claims. "Now, Illinois is making a comeback," it continues.

But the spot is being slammed by longtime campaign insiders in both parties as "spitting in the wind."

For instance, a Paul Simon Public Policy Institute poll in June found that a mere 30 percent of Illinoisans thought the state was on the right track, while a 60-percent majority thought Illinois was on the wrong track.

Back in January, state Senator Michael Frerichs formally kicked off his campaign for Illinois state treasurer and posted a video online touting the fact the he'd ended "free, lifetime health care for state legislators."

Actually, Frerichs had voted against that bill in the General Assembly. Frerichs' campaign had to pull the video and replace it with a new one, even though he'd been planning his formal launch for at least a year.

In April, Frerichs appeared to flip-flop on his longstanding position that the comptroller's and treasurer's offices should be merged.

Frerichs told a WBBM Radio interviewer: "People have said to me, 'Wouldn't it just be a lot more efficient if we just had one financial officer?' And I've said yes, we could become very efficient, efficient like the city of Dixon, Illinois, who just had one chief financial officer and she was able, from this small little town, over several years to take something like $52 million away from them." He was referring to Rita Crundwell, who in 2012 pleaded guilty to embezzling the money. Frerichs was quickly forced to restate his support for the office merger.

"This morning," 1,063 respondents were told the evening of July 17 during a Capitol Fax/We Ask America poll, "Republican candidate for governor Bruce Rauner released an economic plan for Illinois.

"That plan calls for a freeze on property taxes and rolling back the 2010 tax increase. It also implements a new tax on services, such as advertising, legal services, and mini-storage centers. We'd like to know whether this type of plan would make you more likely or less likely to vote for him."

Rauner had certainly tested his service-tax proposal backward and forward before presenting it to the public last week, so I figured it had to poll fairly well. It did.

The poll found that 53 percent said they'd be more likely to vote for Rauner, while just 32 percent said they'd be less likely to vote for him and 15 percent said it made no difference.

On Monday, July 7, before the jury was brought in for his trial, Benton Mackenzie collapsed in the courtroom and was taken to Trinity Medical Center in Bettendorf. On Tuesday, however, the Long Grove, Iowa, resident accused of manufacturing marijuana had reportedly been released from the hospital and testified in his own defense.

For those new to this matter before the Seventh Judicial Court District in Scott County - presided over by Judge Henry Latham (appointed by Governor Terry Branstad in March 2013) - Benton and his wife Loretta were arrested a year ago and charged with growing marijuana, while their son Cody was arrested and charged with possession of less than a gram of marijuana because ... well, just because.

Benton stated, in media reports last year, that he was growing marijuana for the singular purpose of extracting the cannabidiol oil contained in the marijuana plant to treat his angiosarcoma cancer, purportedly in a terminal phase. According to Benton, nothing else but the cannabidiol oil relieves the extreme suffering he is experiencing from horrific lesions that manifest on his posterior. Unfortunately, cannabidiol is extremely expensive. It can be purchased on Amazon.com, among many places, for medicinal purposes because it does not contain THC, and therefore it is not illegal in the U.S. For most people, however, the cost is prohibitive, especially as an ongoing treatment.

So painful and prolific are his symptoms that he was released from the Scott County jail days after his initial incarceration, allegedly because the county did not want the responsibility for or expense of his health care, nor was the facility equipped to handle his extreme case.

The office of County Attorney Mike Walton, however, has aggressively expended tax dollars in prosecuting this invalid, his family, and his friends, but only if Benton is not allowed the common-law defense of growing marijuana for medical purposes. The prosecution submitted a motion in limine that was approved by Judge Latham to disallow any mention of his production or use of marijuana for medical purposes.