Forget about gun control, energy, abortion, public safety and all the other issues that are cluttering up the Illinois gubernatorial race.

The only things that matter in the race between Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn and Republican challenger Sen. Bill Brady are how to dig the state out of the biggest financial hole it has ever been in and how to shed corruption as the preferred model for governing this state.

Everything else — health care, the environment, transportation, school class size, agriculture, housing — counts for nothing. Because if Illinois doesn’t solve the twin, and related, problems of financial insolvency and corruption, none of those other things will matter. There won’t be enough money for all of it. Just paying the interest on the billions that Illinois has borrowed to pay its obligations will squeeze so much out of those programs that they will be only shadows of their former selves.

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