If elected for a second term, Quinn says he would continue to push for a one percentage point income tax “surcharge” that would go toward education. He also wants to reduce the state’s reliance on property taxes to fund education, instead using income tax revenue.

“We should cut property taxes, which aren’t based on ability to pay,” Quinn says. “I’ve got the guts to do it. I’ve seen firsthand the effect property taxes can have on families. … We have to invest in education. If we don’t, we’ll regret it for decades to come. Jobs follow brainpower, so we have to have smart people from birth on.”

Quinn also favors expanding high-speed broadband Internet to rural areas, extending marriage and other rights to gay and lesbian couples and establishing a public option for health insurance. To deal with the state’s burgeoning prison population, Quinn wants more

reasonable sentencing, boot camps and more job training to keep inmates from returning to prison. He also cites a commitment to the environment with green jobs and his plans to court developers of wind power, ethanol, biodiesel and cleaner coal. No one – not even Green Party candidate Rich Whitney – is going to “out-green” Pat Quinn, the governor says matter-of-factly.

Despite Quinn’s populist appeal, one recent opinion poll shows bad news for the governor. An Aug. 18 poll by Public Policy Polling says Quinn’s popularity among likely voters trails Brady’s by nine percentage points – 30 to 39 respectively. The same poll showed that only 40 percent of Democrats approve of the job Quinn is doing as gover nor

and more than a quarter disapprove, while only 17 percent of independent voters approve and 60 percent disapprove. Among African Americans, traditionally a strong Democratic voting bloc in Chicago, Quinn has only 22 percent approval. Quinn’s fundraising also lags behind Brady’s, with Quinn holding about $1.6 million in the bank to Brady’s $2.3 million.

However, Charlie Wheeler says Quinn isn’t beaten yet.

“Who knows what will happen between now and then?” Wheeler says. “Illinois is still basically a Democrat state. The poll results don’t say folks are going over to the Tea Party. It just says that Democrats are crying in their beer. Pragmatic people know they have to work at the grassroots level to identify voters and get them to the polls.”

Because of an estimated $9.9 billion revenue shortfall and in lieu of his proposed one percentage point increase to the income tax, the governor has made widespread, unpopular cuts to education, social programs and health care — areas that rely heavily on state funding and comprise most of the state’s budget. Quinn deals with an outdated tax system in which revenue growth has not kept pace with inflation, and that means the state’s ever-growing responsibilities are paid for with dollars of ever-decreasing value. Incidentally, the bipartisan Center for Tax and Budget Accountability says Illinois is one of the lowest-spending, lowest-taxing states in the nation. Sen. Brady, meanwhile, decries the evils of tax increases and says he will eliminate the $9.9 billion deficit in one year with statewide cuts on which he won’t elaborate.

“Quinn isn’t my first choice, but he’s better than Brady,” Wheeler says. “What he [Brady] says about cutting spending to balance the budget suggests he is either not telling the truth, or he wasn’t paying attention all those years in the Senate. For someone to suggest you can balance the budget in a year by cutting 10 percent, the math just doesn’t work.”

To make matters worse, Illinois has the worst-funded pension system of any state, with $80 billion in unfunded liability caused by the legislature’s use of pension payment money to pay its other bills. Meanwhile, the legislature left Springfield for a four-month vacation after borrowing more money to pay the latest pension bill and without addressing the tax question – most likely so that it wouldn’t haunt them on election day. Still, Quinn wouldn’t shame the legislature for their collective inaction.

“I think it’s important to be civil to everybody, even those who blatantly disagree with you,” he says. “I was disappointed (that the tax increase failed), but in a democracy, you’ve got to have the votes to pass it. We’re building a majority, and there will be a majority this year to get the job done.”

Both Charlie Wheeler and Rich Miller agree that Quinn has had trouble building consensus because of his bad relationship with legislative leaders – especially Speaker of the House