The Milwaukee Post

A Democrat U.S. senator from Montana last month dropped out of his race for a full term following revelations that he plagiarized portions of a master's thesis. Don't expect a similar reaction from Wisconsin's resident plagiarist, Democrat governor candidate Mary Burke. Drop out? She won't even apolo- gize. But the sordid episode not only shines more light on what an odd duck Burke is, but how her entire campaign is a giant fraud. When Burke revealed her economic devel- opment plan in March, she cited her work at Harvard as being the basis for much of her economic theorizing. But it turns out that entire sections of the plan were virtual direct lifts from platforms of candidates in other states. Burke blames it all on a consultant but that explanation speaks volumes about Burke's involvement in the drafting of "her" plan. Burke's handlers needed to put some- thing out on jobs and the economy. They told a consultant to come up with something and he dug up a bunch of banal generalities he used for other candidates in other states. But why? That's the revealing part. Burke can't run on her actual economic beliefs because she's a typical Madison anti- capitalist radical. That ideology can't win in this state so the Burke handlers have given her the same makeover they did on her appearance. They're having her run as a cen- trist and literally stole the script from other campaigns. Burke wouldn't have had to plagiarize any- thing if she wrote, and ran on, her actual views. But they're toxic. You only steal things you don't have. Mary Burke doesn't have a palatable ideology so she had a staff goon go steal one for her. The Democrat campaign for governor is one giant case of identity theft. It's just the latest red flag about a very weird candidate. Burke still hasn't explained why she really left her European job with her family's business, Trek Bike — was she fired? — or what she did for Trek after returning and being assigned "special projects." She can't even credibly account for two years of her life in which she wasn't paying taxes in Wisconsin. Bizarre claims about snowboard- ing in Argentina and Colorado, time in Spain and an invented boyfriend who she now admits doesn't exist are all part of that nar- rative. The gap in her biography was troublesome enough that she invented the boyfriend when applying for a job as commerce secretary in Jim Doyle's administration. State Democrats were so concerned about the snowboarding sabbatical that they polled voters about it before Burke entered the race. Her explana- tion about what state she was living in — and therefore paying taxes to — is still so slippery that it makes an eel's skin seem jagged. And, now, she touts an economic plan that somebody else stole. Even that explanation is shady. Burke says the staffer was fired but there's no record of him ever being paid by Burke's campaign. Well, who did pay him to draw up a plagiarized plan? Was it actually some third-party group that supports Burke? Isn't that what they keep John Doe-ing Scott Walker about? Who really is Mary Burke? It's hard to tell because the truth of her life is elusive and her own ideology so extreme that she has had to invent a new persona and steal a campaign platform. * * * Four years ago another unknown with a business background emerged as a candidate for statewide office. But Ron Johnson's story easily checked out and his business career was straightforward. But what if Johnson had disappeared for a few years and skipped out on state taxes? What if he was caught pla- giarizing campaign material? Johnson would have been hooted out of the Senate race and disavowed by Republican leaders. The media feeding frenzy would have been a spectacle. Johnson, of course, is a Republican. Members of that party aren't allowed to have any warts, much less the clos- et of skeletons Mary Burke is living with. I remember Johnson's initial interviews. He was grilled about his family, how his com- pany (Pacar) grew, why he settled in Oshkosh, what government programs his business par- ticipated in and even what church he attends. Everything checked out. Mary Burke hasn't had a fraction of that scrutiny. And now, the more we find out, the less we know. The policy paper is a rip-off, the business bio is filled with holes, the personal biography is so scant we haven't even learned if she's ever had a significant other. To say Burke has escaped the kind of scrutiny Johnson received is an understatement. It is more accurate to say that Mary Burke is being allowed to run for governor of this state without anybody even bothering to find out who she really is. ( Mark Belling is the host of a daily WISN radio talk show. His column appears weekly in the Milwaukee Post.) September 26, 2014 • Milwaukee County Post • 9 MARK BELLING STANDING UP for MILWAUKEE OPINION Why Burke had to steal a jobs plan By OWEN ROBINSON After months of being badgered for lacking an economic plan, Mary Burke released her much-heralded "Invest for Success" jobs plan March 25 of this year — the day after Gov. Scott Walker signed a $525 million tax cut into law. In releasing her plan, Burke condescendingly derided Walker's 2010 plan saying, "I've seen eighth-grade term papers that have more work put into them." The news broke last week that substan- tial portions of Burke's vaunted jobs plan were plagiarized from at least four other people. Even eighth-graders are expected to do their own work. BuzzFeed broke the news. It is worth noting that it again took a national reporter to uncover bad news about Burke because the Wisconsin news media has been too invested in her success to be real journalists. BuzzFeed compared Burke's jobs plan to those of other candidates and found that large passages were exactly the same as those from the jobs plans of Democratic gubernatorial candidates Ward Cammack, Jack Markell and Terry McAuliffe. A Wisconsin GOP aide also pointed out another passage copied from a White House news release. Burke promptly blamed the plagiarism on a campaign consult- ant and fired the con- sultant. At the same time, she defended her jobs plan as her own saying, "I stand by it. I would not have put those ideas into my plan, if I didn't think they were right for Wisconsin." Which is it? Is the plagiarism a result of a rogue consultant or did the plan originate with Burke? She can't have it both ways. The most problematic aspect of this episode for Wisconsin voters is that Burke has touted her business acumen as the rea- son to elect her as governor. Her Harvard MBA and private-sector executive experi- ence were supposed to make us believe that she was supremely qualified to lead the state's economy to the promised land. Now we find out that she was not even capable of producing her own campaign jobs plan. A closer examination of Burke's résumé perhaps explains why Burke was incapable of drafting her own jobs plan for Wisconsin. After earning her illustrious Harvard MBA and spending a couple of years as a consultant, she landed at her family's company, Trek. From 1990 or 1991 to 1993 (Burke has given different dates for when she started at Trek), she was Trek's director of European Operations. She claims to have been responsible for vastly expanding Trek in Europe at this time, but Trek has not verified her claims. Given the recent revelations of her taking credit for others' work, her claims should be taken with a grain of salt. After an exhausting two or three years at Trek and in her 30s, Burke took a two- year snowboarding sabbatical. She spent four months in Argentina with a boyfriend or just some friends — again her story has changed — and the rest of the time in Colorado. When asked about this period, she had to resort to old receipts and pass- ports to remember what she was doing. Most people do not need to resort to docu- mentation to answer simple questions about their own lives. In 1995, now presumably rested, Burke returned to the family company for the next nine years, where she does not even attempt to articulate any definable accom- plishments. In 2005, she left Trek to be Gov. Jim Doyle's commerce secretary. Her tenure there was unremarkable and she resigned in 2007 saying that her depart- ment "sat on the sidelines while other states vie to recruit new businesses." Burke was unemployed from 2007-12, but this did not stop her from generously giving almost $10,000 to President Barack Obama's campaign. Finally, from 2008 to present, after self-financing the most expensive campaign for school board in state history, Burke has been a member of the part-time Madison School Board. An examination of Burke's job history explains why she was incapable or unwill- ing to come up with her own jobs plan for Wisconsin. Burke has only been gainfully employed for 17 of the 29 years since she graduated from Harvard in 1985. Twelve of those years were at her family's company and two of them were as the commerce secretary. The remaining 12 years were spent doing what rich people have the lux- ury of doing — bumming around snow- boarding, volunteering for pet causes and generally enjoying a life of leisure. It is a nice life, but not one with which most Wisconsinites can relate. And it is not a life that qualifies Burke to lead Wisconsin. Burke decided to fill her jobs plan with plagiarized failed economic ideas of other liberals because she is unqualified to do anything else. It is as simple as that. (Owen B. Robinson is a West Bend resi- dent whose column appears regularly in The Milwaukee Post.) Burke isn't qualified to create jobs plan Robinson

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