Out-of-towners on Rauner’s team

Is GOP gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner one brick short of a load?

Is Rauner a half-bubble off plumb?

How does a guy like Rauner, who made $53 million in 2012, publicly state he wants to cut a dollar off some poor guy’s $8.25-an-hour minimum wage?

It doesn’t make him likable. In fact, it makes him loathsome.

And when Rauner does a redo and claims he misspoke, he sounds like a turkey who eats malarkey.

Who is advising this guy?

Here’s who. Rauner’s chief consultant is Nick Ayers, and his press guy is Mike Schrimpf, both guys from the Republican Governors Association — and neither from Illinois. Sneed is told Rauner’s scheduling is done by his former secretary, although I’m told she’s very capable.

“Nobody would work for him when he started,” said a top GOP source. “Couldn’t hire anybody locally. He was just some rich guy.”

Sneed hears Rauner’s backers are frantic, manic, and in panic over their candidate’s ability to torpedo his campaign.

◆ Backshot: Earlier GOP primary polling showed Rauner ahead.

◆ Buckshot: Rauner folks are now scrambling to assess how much damage was done by his slip of the lip.

◆ Bottom line: It isn’t easy being a first-time candidate; but Rauner has only 67 days before the GOP primary to repair his lip trip.

◆ Bottoms up? And if the hoi polloi come out in droves, Rauner’s got to buy a lot of lip gloss.

The Quinn bin . . .

Munch & crunch? While labor unions who oppose Rauner gear up their ack ack attack in hopes of torpedoing his campaign, Gov. Pat Quinn was spotted huddling at Harry Caray’s eatery for lunch Wednesday with Chicago Federation of Labor chief Jorge Ramirez.