SPRINGFIELD — After singling out Illinois’ worst-in-the-nation pension crisis as the most important issue of his governorship, Pat Quinn could only watch this week as his latest self-imposed deadline evaporated with almost no progress in a Legislature over which he has little sway.

The governor suffered perhaps the worst fallout from this week’s lame-duck session, which ended when his surprise plan for an independent pension commission was derided as desperate. The Legislature, controlled by fellow Democrats, didn’t even call a vote on it.

He has been widely praised for good intentions and efforts, but now it could be more months without movement and no promise of a solution on his signature issue as Republicans — and even a few fellow Democrats — begin angling to challenge him in the 2014 governor’s race.

Quinn just shrugged it off Wednesday as a new General Assembly was sworn in, effectively restarting the process.

“You have to have deadlines in life,” he said. “Sometimes you make those deadlines, and sometimes you have to keep working, keep running. That’s what long distance is all about. You never stop working on something until you get to the finish line.”

Since he proclaimed last year that he was “put on Earth” to solve the pension crisis, Quinn has isolated the problem above other priorities such as paying bills, legalizing same-sex marriage and enacting broader gun control. He has called a special legislative session, overseen a pension working group, released studies, discussed it with students and even tried a more lighthearted approach with a Web campaign and its cartoon mascot, “Squeezy the Pension Python.”

In the waning hours of the lame-duck session, his staff said he talked with dozens of lawmakers to secure votes on a proposal. He testified before a committee and floated last-minute legislation tasking a commission to come up with solutions by April.

But none of it rippled into action on a final solution, something that experts say damages him on this particular issue and on his broader image.

“Every time he tries and loses a fight, it just makes him weaker for the next one,” said David Yepsen, director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.

The unsolved pension problem has further agitated Quinn’s already contentious relationship with unions, a key voting bloc he needs, particularly if a fellow Democrat makes the bold decision to challenge the sitting governor in a primary. Former White House chief of staff Bill Daley, the son and brother of two of Chicago’s former mayors, said he is seriously thinking about it and has condemned Illinois’ lack of leadership on pensions as a reason.