It's no secret that Republican-primary voters in Illinois have been almost rigidly hierarchical when it comes to choosing gubernatorial candidates. They pretty much always choose the candidate who can best demonstrate that it's his or her "turn."

In 1990, after eight years as secretary of state, Jim Edgar was the clear choice. Indeed, he barely had opposition. The same went for two-term Secretary of State George Ryan eight years later. In 2002, it was clearly Attorney General Jim Ryan's turn, and he bested two other high-profile candidates in the primary. In 2006, Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka beat three lesser-known opponents to win her primary race, although it wasn't as easy.

By now, it should be self-evident that Bruce Rauner has locked up pretty much all the big money in the Republican-primary race for governor. Last week's pension-reform vote provides even more evidence.

Rauner has built an impenetrable fortress of high-dollar campaign contributors. Ron Gidwitz, long known in GOP circles for being the gateway to big-time cash from the wealthy, has fully joined in, as has Ken Griffin, the richest man in Illinois.

Gidwitz was with Senator Kirk Dillard in the 2010 gubernatorial primary, but Gidwitz and Rauner have sucked up so many dollars - including more than $250,000 from campaign fundraising committee member Griffin and lots more from Griffin's friends - that Dillard hasn't been able to raise any cash from rich people he's known for years, even decades. Dillard's financial predicament has become so desperate that he voted against last week's pension-reform bill in the obvious hope that he can now raise some dough from public-employee unions.

Dillard's vote is even more bizarre when you realize that he voted against a union-negotiated pension bill back in May and twice voted in favor of House Speaker Michael Madigan's pension-reform bill in May and June.

But he really had no choice last week; it was sink-or-swim time.

Illinois union leaders are reportedly mulling several options about what to do in the governor's race. But the only thing the leaders appear to agree on so far is that anti-union Republican gazillionaire Bruce Rauner cannot be allowed to win.

Some union honchos are looking at endorsing a candidate in the Republican primary. State Senator Kirk Dillard, for instance, already has strong support from the Operating Engineers, a union that is now even more opposed to Rauner since the candidate's endorsement by the strongly anti-union Associated Builders & Contractors group. Other unions have also taken keen notice of that endorsement.

Perhaps the biggest loser in November 5's historic passage of a gay-marriage bill in Springfield was the National Organization for Marriage.

The group, based in Washington, DC, has been at the forefront of attempts to stop gay marriage in states throughout the country. A Maine investigation uncovered what it claimed were internal NOM documents about the group's strategy, including this passage: "The strategic goal of this project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks - two key Democratic constituencies. Find, equip, energize, and connect African-American spokespeople for marriage; develop a media campaign around their objections to gay marriage as a civil right; provoke the gay-marriage base into responding by denouncing these spokesmen and -women as bigots. No politician wants to take up and push an issue that splits the base of the party."

The organization tried all that in Illinois, spending tens of thousands of dollars on politically connected consultants and robo-calls into black districts in the spring, summer, and right up until the day of the vote, and holding media-friendly events in the black community. The bill wasn't called for a vote last spring mainly because black House members were overwhelmed by fervent local opposition.