Last night, I watched the Gill-Johnson debates on PBS. Overall, Gill did pretty well, and certainly seemed a lot more sincere than Johnson. When they were asked about education, Gill talked about making college affordable, and Johnson went on about all the research funding that UI had received. Yes, UIUC gets a lot of research money, but I'm not sure how much Johnson actually has to do with it. However, it was interesting to note that students may be paying a lot more interest on student loans due to a recent budget bill. There were a number of articles about how Sallie Mae and other student loan corporations had contributed a lot of money to Rep. John Boehner (R-OH). What didn't get mentioned was that Boehner's PAC (The Freedom Project) had given $10000 to Tim Johnson, and Sallie Mae had even contributed $1000 directly to Johnson.

Another caller had a question about the Communications Act, and the topic of net neutrality came up. Johnson went on about how he'd voted for the COPE Act this June because it would help interoperability . He was pretty vague, and didn't mention at all the AT&T had donated over $29000 to his campaign. Gill appeared to be in favor of net neutrality, which impressed me.

This week, another one of Johnson's contributors made the news. Stuart Levine, who's given Johnson $2000, has officially been indicted in the TRS probes. Bill Cellini, a powerful Springfield Republican who was "Individual A" in Levine's indictment, has given Johnson $4000. Another Johnson contributor, Donald Udstuen, has already been convicted in connection with the Ryan corruption. Johnson's also gotten money from PACs associated with Tom DeLay ($25000 from ARMPAC) and Bob Ney ($2000 from American Liberty PAC). There's a list up at http://mrscake.livejournal.com/191488.html or you can just search the FEC.