The DC pundit crowd may finally be getting an inkling of what’s about to happen here.

Charlie Cook has revised his rating of the governor’s race from “Likely Democratic” to “Lean Democratic.” There’s a link to a subscriber-only story on his website entitled “Blagojevich’s Early Spending Can’t Fend off Topinka’s Challenge.”

Meanwhile, the National Journal’s latest ranking report had this to say

14 ILLINOIS Rod Blagojevich (D) Last Ranking: 14

Blagojevich could be vulnerable, and the national GOP appears interested in giving this race a go.

There’s more to that story. CQPolitics has the race at “Leans Democratic.”

* UPDATE: I don’t put a huge amount of stock into Chris Cillizza’s “The Fix” blog at the Washington Post, but a commenter pointed this out and I do agree with much of what he writes here.

14. Illinois: If Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) felt comfortable about his re-election this fall, he wouldn’t have spent more than $5 million to define state Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka (R) before she had a chance to do it for herself. Topinka is now up on television. Let’s see if the commercials move any polling numbers. This is an opportunity for Republicans, but the cost of going full-bore on behalf of Topinka may ultimately be too high. (Previous ranking: 15)