Bruce Rauner reportedly had one of those bugs that were going around last week.

Rauner didn't take any time off, and it showed. For the first time at his press conferences, he read his statements right off the page, painfully stumbling over his words.

He and his campaign also seemed grumpier last week. "Pat Quinn is not the folksy, bumbling fool he'd like us to think he is," Rauner growled on Monday. On Tuesday, Rauner's campaign barred some college journalism students from his press conference, and Rauner refused to even have a word with them afterward. On Wednesday, he turned his head and pointedly ignored a follow-up question from a Chicago TV reporter about the NFL scandals. More on that in a moment.

Maybe the recent Chicago Tribune poll that showed him trailing Governor Pat Quinn by 11 added to his physical misery. But it was Rauner's personal decision to not flood the airwaves with TV ads during the spring and summer, when Quinn didn't have the money to adequately respond. Rauner cheaped out, and now it's gonna cost him a lot more money to win this thing. So he has nobody to blame but himself.

Some recent Chicago Tribune poll results appear to indicate that support for raising the minimum wage in the state's largest city may be enough to increase voter turnout for a non-binding November ballot referendum.

The poll found that 84 percent of registered Chicago voters support a city-task-force recommendation to increase the minimum wage to $13 per hour over the next three years. According to the poll, 78 percent of whites and 92 percent of African Americans and even 71 percent of Chicagoans making more than $100,000 a year back the plan.

Democrats have been hoping to use the referendum - which asks about raising the minimum wage to $10 an hour - as a tool to help spur turnout in what is rapidly developing into a big Republican year. And with the Tribune's numbers backing a much higher minimum wage, it does seem likely that the issue can be effective, particularly among African Americans. Support above 70 to 80 percent is generally seen as having a ballot impact. Get above 90 and it's sure to drive votes. Then again, the comparatively "stingy" state-ballot proposal, when compared to the Chicago proposal, might garner less enthusiasm.

On the bright side, you could argue that the budget passed last week by the General Assembly will lead to the largest tax cut in Illinois history come January, when the 2011 income-tax increase partially expires on schedule.

But that's about the only bright side. And, really, pretty much nobody expects that some sort of tax hike will be avoided after the election, no matter who wins in November.

"Off topic? I can't imagine what that would be," cracked Governor Pat Quinn last week during a press conference. Just hours before, his lieutenant governor had announced that she would not be his 2014 running mate.

Quinn usually does a pretty good job during his press conferences of convincing reporters to wait to ask off-topic questions until all questions about the subject at hand have been asked. Last week was no exception.

Quinn was holding a presser with U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to discuss her conditional approval allowing Illinois to move forward with an online health-insurance exchange - a major step toward implementing the president's national health-care plan.

"You could get caught by stray bullets," Quinn jokingly warned the folks who had gathered with him to make the announcement. "You don't have to be part of the firing squad," he added with a laugh.

He knew what was coming. Earlier in the morning, the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute had released a poll showing that Quinn was badly trailing Lisa Madigan in a hypothetical primary matchup. By mid-morning, the late Senator Simon's daughter, Sheila, had announced that she wouldn't be running with Quinn again. Simon's aides said she didn't know about the poll from her father's think tank, but the irony wasn't lost on those of us who watch these things.