The magic number keeps ticking down.

As of today, there are 19 days left until Election Day on November 2. That means 19 more days for candidates to pitch their messages. To flood the media with advertisements. To attack their opponents and defend their records and programs. To simplify their rhetoric and draw a line in the sand. And most importantly, to get their core supporters fired up and start moving them to polling places through the state's early voting program or on Election Day proper.

It's base time, in other words. And it's on in earnest in Illinois.

Last night, Vice President Joe Biden headlined a rally at the Plumbers' Hall in Chicago before hundreds of plumbers, pipefitters, laborers, public sector employees, health care workers, and other union members. Biden offered a full-throated defense of the Obama administration's performance and priorities in Washington, telling the crowd they had delivered "real change," including the health care bill and financial system overhaul. He attacked Washington's Republicans on a number of issues before pivoting to Illinois' gubernatorial campaign and turning his ire on Bill Brady, the GOP's pick for governor. "These guys are all the same," Biden said. Watch:

"Get it straight guys. These guys [in the GOP] are playing for keeps," Biden told the crowd. "This is for all the marbles. They want all the marbles back."

While Biden's speech focused largely on Quinn's campaign, earlier in the night, U.S. Senator Dick Durbin introduced some of the other Democratic candidates on the November 2 ballot. Here's a montage of clips from the short speeches given by U.S. Rep. Danny Davis, Attorney General Lisa Madigan, Lieutenant Gov. candidate Shelia Simon, and Ilinois Comptroller candidate State Rep. David Miller (note Miller's get-fired-up invocation of the Democratic Party tradition at the end):

Besides union members, black voters comprise a critical part of the Democratic Party's base, and new efforts are under way to ensure their bloc of voters gets out before or on Election Day as well. This morning, a group of African-American leaders who've organized as the Coalition to Protect African-American Interests (CPAAI) held a press conference on Chicago's South Side to announce a push to get 100,000 black voters from Chicago's South and West sides and from Cook County suburban townships to the polls to support the Quinn campaign.

The informal organization is not incorporated as a non-profit and relies on what Jay Travis, one of its leaders, said was private donations and volunteers. The group articulated four "immediate areas of concern" for black voters, according to a statement: job creation and workforce development; criminal justice system reform; comprehensive education reform; and health care funding. Here's Travis and Shantiel Simons, of south suburban Robbins, laying out the issues their organization have identified as key for African-American voters and why Quinn will offer better policies to address them:

Travis, a Bronzeville resident, is director at the Kenwood-Oakland Community Organization, but she emphasized after the press conference she was participating in the CPAAI effort as a private citizen, since it was a partisan push to get black voters to vote for Quinn. Travis said others in CPAAI were in the same position -- community, religious, and business leaders with deep roots in Chicago's African-American neighborhoods and in suburban Cook County. She said CPAAI members will use their connections in these neighborhoods to phone bank, door knock, and push Quinn's message at community hubs.

There is a concern that voters who participated in the 2008 presidential contest won't get out to vote this time around. There are some 875,000 "Obama voters" in Cook County, by some estimates -- people who did not vote in 2006, who did vote in 2008 because of the presidential contest, but are unlikely to vote this year. Getting those voters to the polls is what concerns Travis. "There's so much at stake," she said. "We can't afford to stay at home in November."