An amusing moment from yesterday’s Meet The Press, in which Alexi Giannoulias, the Democratic candidate for Senate in Illinois, is asked if he knew when his family bank loaned money to convicted mobsters. The best he can do is say “he didn’t know the extent” of their criminal activity.

So in short, yes, he knew he was loaning money to gangsters, he just wasn’t privvy to the details of their business (which I guess is a relief). The rest of the segment, in which Republican candidate Mark Kirk pulls out a list of the crooks Giannoulias’s bank loaned money to — with the ones where Giannoulias himself was the loan officer highlighted — is here (there are some issues with the sound quality on that video, though).

In related news, Dave Weigel notes that as of today, polling is showing a 51-seat Republican majority in the next Senate. What’s changed most recently is that polls show Dino Rossi may win the Washington race that Jeremy Lott assesses in the October issue of TAS.