* The Illinois Manufacturers Association totaled up all absentee ballot requests through October 31st by county, added them to the early voting tallies and came up with the following numbers…

* Republicans: 156,177
* Democrats: 230,537
* Independents: 178,902

Mind you, requests aren’t the same as actual absentee votes. They define independents as people who didn’t vote in the primary or who have bounced around in the past three primaries. The county-by-county numbers are here.

This is a far better showing for Republicans than in the past. And they’ll probably get the majority of those independents as well.

[I misunderstood the IMA e-mail and had to rewrite the above section. The numbers the IMA gave me today are the grand totals.]

* This is kinda apples and oranges. From the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform…

The record for money raised by candidates for governor in an Illinois election has been shattered by 2010 candidates. […]

Republican Bill Brady tops the chart at $15.1 million, followed closely by Democratic incumbent Pat Quinn at $13.2 million. Independent Scott Lee Cohen reports $3.3 million, Green nominee Rich Whitney shows $45,000 and Libertarian Lex Green reports $24,000

Four years ago, Rod Blagojevich had about $17 million for the fall campaign, including his cash on hand at the end of June. This is the same way the ICPR figured this year’s numbers. But Blagojevich started running TV ads against Judy Baar Topinka in April. He spent almost $3.7 million on media buys between April 1 and the end of June and another $173K in mail. So, his actual “fall” spending was about $21 million.

Plus, there was no millionaire independent spending money hand over fist like this year. So, yeah, it’s a record on paper, but that isn’t the entire story.

Also, the Republican Governors Association accounts for a third of Brady’s cash.

* Back on October 20th, Fox News reported that Illinois Republicans have outperformed every other state party in terms of voter contact. The Republicans’ Illinois Victory program has called “almost three million” voters since the summer, the station reported. The party posted the video on its YouTube site with the headline: “FNC: Nearly 3 Million Calls by Illinois Victory! ” Watch…

* And here’s Illinois Republican Party Chairman Pat Brady today…

“We’ve stayed under the radar until now,” said Illinois GOP Chairman Pat Brady. “But we lead every other state in the number of phone calls we’ve made — 4.4 Million. And we’ve identified 2.5 million Republican voters.”

That means they’ve made over 100,000 calls a day since October 20th. Hmm. But how many are completed calls? I decided to check with the state party this afternoon.

Of those 4.4 million calls, a bit under 2 million were actually completed. Of those, they’ve identified the leanings of a little over 929,000 people, whether those be Republican, Democrat or whatever. They have a GOTV universe, they say, of 2.5 million. That would include hard “Rs” who’ve voted in primaries.

* From a Tribune editorial…

Statehouse pols have obligated so many of your tax dollars to prop up their bureaucracy and assure themselves of sweet retirement that there’s no money to pay the caretakers of our sick, disabled and mentally handicapped citizens. Those citizens can’t afford lobbyists.

Illinois has the lowest state employee per capita ratio in the nation. Propping up the “bureacracy” is only a real problem in their minds.

And the “caretakers” of our sick, disabled and mentally handicapped citizens pretty much all have lobbyists, contrary to the Tribune. The Illinois Hospital Association, the Illinois Council on Long Term Care, Illinois State Medical Society, Illinois Nurses Association, Lutheran Social Services, SEIU, Voices for Illinois Children, The ARC of Illinois, Illinois Association of Rehabilitation Facilities, National Association of Social Workers, United Cerebral Palsy of Illinois, Illinois Networks of Centers for Independent Living, the Illinois Association of Public Health Administrators, the Illinois Cannabis Patients Association… Shall I go on?

Angry people don’t think. And the Tribune editorial board is a good case in point.

* This Tribune story overlooks an important point…

The Illinois State Universities Retirement System and the Illinois State Employees’ Retirement System, two of the three largest funds, each reduced their assumed annualized rate of return to 7.75 percent, from 8.50 percent, while the much smaller Illinois Judges’ Retirement System lowered its goal to 7 percent, from 8 percent. […]

For the university pension fund, the change will push its liability level up by $2.4 billion, or more than 8 percent, to $30.1 billion, which in turn will reduce its funded level to 40.24 percent, from 43.75 percent. And the state’s annual contribution will rise by nearly $100 million, or more than 11 percent, to $980 million, according to William Mabe, executive director of the university pension system.

Yes, the move pushes up the unfunded liability. But by lowering the expected annual rate of return, that means the interest rate the state pays to the pension funds for our unfunded liability amount is also lowered. The magic of compound interest means that, over time, this may actually save the state some cash.

* Um, no…

Can Twitter predict elections? New media guru Dan Zarrella says yes, Twitter can. He checked out a random sampling of recent campaigns and compared which candidates had the most Twitter followers, and in 71% of the races, the one with the most Twitter followers won. So we began checking out Illinois races to see if Zarrella’s theory can be right. Is Twitter that influential? Or does Twitter simply reflect “the word on the street” and thus, the “votes in the polls”?

If Twitter numbers indicate anything in Illinois gubernatorial race, Bill Brady’s walking away with that one. “Bill_Brady” shows 1888 Twitter followers and “ILGovPatQuinn” shows only 10 followers. A spoof, “PatQuinnsBrain” has more followers than the governor’s does. We couldn’t find a campaign account for Quinn in a quick browse, so, it doesn’t look good for Quinn if Twitter numbers matter.

Actually, if they had just gone to Quinn’s campaign page, you’ll see a prominent link to his Twitter account. Quinn has 1,151 followers.

* Bill Brady says he will fire at least 300 Rod Blagojevich holdovers if elected. However, the House’s “fumigation bill” targeted 750 employees…

The Illinois House voted unanimously last year for a “fumigation” bill introduced by Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, to remove about 750 employees who are “double-exempt.” The employees are not covered by civil service and are not protected by U.S. Supreme Court decisions against patronage firing. […]

Brady said Saturday the number of targeted appointees is “at least 300, if not more.”

Maybe he needs an audit.