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In Illinois, incumbent Democrat Pat Quinn won in 2010 with less than 50% of the vote. Not much has improved since then as he bears the second worse approval rating of any incumbent running for reelection in 2014- 31%. Generally, that is a recipe for loss or at least a primary challenge.

I live in the People's Socialist Hell-Hole named Illinois. Not sure where Red State got their approval numbers for Quinn, but the polls I've seen have Quinn under 20% approval.

In fact, once Lisa Madigan gets in the race (as I think she will) Quinn's toast from the Democrat side. Lisa's daddy Mike Madigan (Speaker of the Illinois House) has had an iron fist grip on Illinois politics for the last 30+ years now. If Daddy's Girl Lisa runs - she wins. Period. It'll be a pure machine politics win, the votes in this state won't matter.

Bill Daley (brother of former mayor Richard Daley) has tossed his hat in the ring, but has also telegraphed that if Lisa Madigan gets in, he's bowing out. If Madigan stays out of the race, Bill Daley will be the de facto Democrat Candidate.

While there may be other Democrat candidates, I don't see them as "serious" candidates by any stretch, whether Lisa Madigan gets in the race or not. Either Madigan or Daley can easily bump that milquetoast piece of crap Quinn off the ticket. Plenty of people in this state (Democrat and Republican alike) are still MAD AS HELL at Quinn's doubling the State Income Tax and the runaway property taxes here in Illinois. No way Quinn survives on the Democrat side.

On the Republican Side - frankly it doesn't matter who runs. The next Governor of this state will either be Daddy's Girl Lisa Madigan, or Bill Daley.

But what the heck, here's who the two announced, top candidates are on the Republican (read that RINO) side.

First is State Treasurer Dan Rutherford. Rutherford is part of the GOP-E machine here in Illinois. His views on abortion and gun control are not well known to the public. According to a published but not widely seen interview with NBC-5 in Chicago Rutherford says he supports Conceal-Carry in Illinois and is as "pro-life as they come."

On other social issues such as "gay marriage" Rutherford says the following: "We as Republicans should not allow the social issues to define a good Republican from a bad Republican, I mean it. There are a lot of good Republicans that aren't pro-life. There are a lot of good Republicans that don't support the idea of conceal carry. You know what? That doesn't make 'em a bad Republican.

That immediately takes Rutherford out of consideration in my view, no way I can vote for the guy. While it's true there are many so-called Republican's in this state that don't support the Pro-Life movement or support Conceal-Carry, we out here in the grass-roots call them DEMOCRATS. That's what they should change their party to!

Then there's businessman Bruce Rauner. Rauner is thus far focusing his campaign on how bad Illinois' finances are, driving the need to reform the bankrupt pension system in this state, and improve the business climate which is driving small to medium sized business' out of the state. Other businesses such as Caterpillar, Motorola and others have announced shut-downs in Illinois or moving expanded manufacturing facilities (Caterpillar) out of state rather than adding capacity in Illinois.

Rauner's positions on social issues (abortion, gun control, "gay marriage") haven't been well defined or documented that I can find, putting Rauner in the "need more information" category.

If there are any other serious Republican contenders in Illinois, I don't know them. There's been some speculation that Judy Baar-Topinka (state Comptroller) may run, I don't view her as a serious candidate. She's run before against Blagojevich (now in Federal Prison in Colorado) and lost handily.

Likewise Kirk Dillard came in second in the Republican Governor's primary back in 2012 in a hard fought battle, problem with Dillard is he won't way that he will not raise taxes. To me, that puts him in the "HELL NO!" category.

In Summary: In this complete HELL-HOLE called Illinois, it doesn't matter who runs on the Republican side in the upcoming Gubernatorial race. The next Democrat Gubernatorial Primary winner will be the next Governor.

God help us all.