* I went to a restaurant at the Springfield Hilton last night to meet with some people and ran into several folks who were in town to file their nominating petitions. It was a jovial atmosphere. Petition filing day is sorta like the beginning of spring training. Optimism abounds. Anyone can be a winner.

Gov. Pat Quinn’s campaign has filed his nominating petitions. I’m told they collected something like 25,000 50,000 signatures and pared that down to their best 10,000 over the weekend.

Quinn’s Democratic primary opponent Tio Hardiman has filed his petitions, although there’s a mistake in his running mate’s name on the Board of Election’s website. Her actual name is Brunell Donald-Kyei. She’s an attorney who started at the Public Guardian’s office and is now in private practice. She’s a former foster ward, who went into the system after her mother’s death. She has no political background.

*** UPDATE *** Sun-Times…

Hardiman undoubtedly will face a challenge to knock him from the ballot, but he vouched for his signatures and thanked his consultant, former state Sen. Rickey Hendon, D-Chicago, for personally “vetting” the names to “make sure the signatures were solid.”

Hendon usually does a pretty good job with petitions (he also became an expert at knocking people off the ballot), so Hardiman has a good shot at staying on the ballot.

[ *** End Of Update *** ]

All four of the Republican candidates have filed petitions.

* Both Jim Oberweis and Doug Truax have filed petitions to run for US Senate. From a Truax press release…

Doug Truax’s building campaign passed its first milestone early this morning as the West Point grad, Army veteran and successful entrepreneur filed his nominating petitions in Springfield for the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate.

As a political newcomer, it is a daunting task for a first-time statewide candidate to gather the needed signatures. Truax passed the test with flying colors and has gained additional momentum with two important early endorsements.

“Our campaign is bringing young and old, men and women, rural, urban and suburban regions together in a growing coalition to retire Dick Durbin and take Illinois and Washington in a better direction,” Truax said in Springfield Monday.

In the first two important joint appearances before major Republican audiences where both major candidates spoke, Truax strongly bested perennial candidate Jim Oberweis.

On Saturday in Bolingbrook at the state convention of the Federation of Illinois Young Republicans, Truax won the straw poll vote with 70.9 percent of the vote.

Last week, Truax won 64 percent of the vote at Palatine Township Republican Organization after hearing from both candidates.

“There is a yearning out there for a new kind of conservative candidate who can build a wider coalition in order to defeat Dick Durbin,” Truax said. “We are pleased that the early results indicate that our message is resonating with GOP voters.”

* You can click here to watch the petitions come in and search those already filed. Tell us what you see.