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My apologies to the Republicans. It turns out all that national money flowing into the Illinois governor's race for Bill Brady didn't just fall off the Republican money tree, as I cynically suggested.

Instead, it was growing under a rock all the time, and it was my own fault for not knowing which rock to turn over.

Now that I know the Republican Governors Association files public disclosure reports with the Internal Revenue Service, I feel duty bound to report on who is financing the group that has put up half of the money for the Brady campaign.

The problem remains that it's still not really possible to say exactly which dollars are making their way into the Illinois governor's race.

Is it the $1.25 million donated to the Republican Governors Association by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., the $4 million from Houston home builder and Swift Boat attack ad financier Bob Ross, or the $1 million from Chicago hedge fund managers Kenneth and Anne Griffin-

Could it be the $250,000 in donations from our own Duchossois family of racetrack fame, the $1 million from Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson or the $25,000 from local hot dog impresario Richard Portillo-

These are among the many individuals and corporations fueling the Republican Governors Association, which reported dumping another $1.4 million into Illinois late last week, channeling the money through a shell campaign fund, RGA Illinois 2010 PAC, that was created for the purpose of helping Brady.

The group's latest donation pushes its total involvement in the Brady campaign past the $6.8 million mark, which I believe to be unprecedented in an Illinois state election.

The way this works is that Brady just reports to the State Board of Elections that he got money from RGA Illinois 2010 PAC, which in turn just reports to the state board that it got money from the Republican Governors Association, which doesn't report its fund-raising activities at all to Illinois. That's where you have to check with the IRS.

It's apparently all legal, but the process makes a mockery of this state's campaign disclosure laws -- as well as illuminates that there's a lot more at stake here than presiding over the State Fair.

As I reported the other day, Gov. Quinn has also been the recipient of national party money -- $1.8 million from the Democratic Governors Association -- but at least the Democrats declared which specific donations went into Quinn's campaign.

That's what allowed me to report the curious fact of the Quinn benefactors collecting $100,000 from Centene Corp. just weeks before the St. Louis health-care company announced it had landed a major state contract from his administration to provide Medicaid services in the Chicago area.

Most of Quinn's campaign funds come directly from big unions, which isn't my idea of good government, either, but it's out in the open for those who might take exception.

That's not the case on the GOP side.

Why do it this way- The official explanation is that donors are contributing to an overall effort to elect Republican governors in multiple states, and this approach allows the party flexibility to put the money where it's needed. I'd suggest it also lends some cover to those who prefer to fly under the radar with their campaign contributions.

With that in mind, I should mention that among the other big Illinois donors to the Republican Governors Association this year are: Motorola, $160,000; developer John Buck, $60,000; Madison Dearborn Partners Chairman John Canning, $50,000; Des Plaines-based Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, $100,000; venture capitalist Bruce Rauner, $100,000, and Kraft Foods $75,000.

Then there are the Griffins, who are certainly one of the curiosities of this election season, with each having donated $500,000 to the Republican governors group.

Kenneth Griffin is founder and CEO of Citadel Group, and wife Anne Dias Griffin is founder and managing partner of Aragon Global Management. He tied for 159th place on this year's Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans with a fortune of $2.3 billion.

Their RGA donation comes on top of a combined $450,000 that the Chicago couple have contributed directly to the Brady campaign, which doesn't include another $590,000 that they've poured into Republican state legislative races here.

All in all, that's quite a Republican push for the Griffins, who in past forays into Illinois politics showed up mostly in the corner of Democrats, including $55,000 to Rod Blagojevich in 2002 and $150,000 to Mayor Daley in 2006. In the 2008 election, Kenneth Griffin was both a bundler for Barack Obama and a donor to John McCain.

The Griffins declined to be interviewed, which is a shame, because I'd really like to know what specifically ticked them off.