Mary Burke

CBS’s Whitaker: Fla., Wisc. Governor’s Races Represent ‘Referendum’ on GOP ‘Playbook’
By Curtis Houck | November 3, 2014 | 9:58 PM EST

On Monday’s CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley, CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker opined during a roundtable discussion that Tuesday’s governor’s elections in Florida and Wisconsin featuring incumbent Republican Governors Rick Scott and Scott Walker (respectively) will be “a referendum on” the “policies” that the two have implemented in their states based on “the Republican playbook.” After mentioning that Scott is facing Democrat Charlie Crist (failing to mention Crist was both a former Governor and Republican) while Walker’s Democratic challenger is Mary Burke, Whitaker suggested that: “Now, both Scott and Walker have followed the Republican playbook on taxes, on abortion, on same-sex marriage, and tomorrow's kind of shaping up to be a referendum on those policies.”

 

Some 'Update': Politico's Burns Still Ignores Burke Bio Fail, Walker's +7 Poll Lead
By Tom Blumer | October 30, 2014 | 6:03 PM EDT

At NewsBusters yesterday, P.J. Gladnick justifiably went after the over-the-top hackery pervading Alexander Burns's Politico story on how "Scott Walker limps toward 2016." Burns bitterly criticized Walker's "divide-and-conquer strategy," and the governor himself as "confrontational" and (of course) "polarizing."

Given that his column was allegedly updated this morning, I expected Burns to revise his writeup to react to two recent newsworthy campaign developments. Incredibly, he didn't mention either.

CBS Wonders If a Scott Walker Loss Will ‘Send a Message’ Nationwide About His 'Policies and Politics’?
By Curtis Houck | October 28, 2014 | 10:03 PM EDT

With the midterm elections one week away from Tuesday, the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley profiled the race in Wisconsin for governor as incumbent Governor and Republican Scott Walker faces off against Democratic candidate Mary Burke. 

While it’s certainly worth covering governor’s races across the country, CBS News correspondent Dean Reynolds chose to use the occasion to go after Walker and his policies by asking Burke if a victory over Walker would “send a message to the rest of the country about the kind of policies and politics that he practices.”

Media Mum? DNC Chair Wasserman Schultz Implies GOP Gov. Scott Walker Beats Women
By Tim Graham | September 3, 2014 | 10:40 PM EDT

DNC chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz ramped up “War on Women” rhetoric to an accusatory new level. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports the Florida congresswoman said the Governor of Wisconsin is a domestic abuser: "Scott Walker has given women the back of his hand. I know that is stark. I know that is direct. But that is reality."

Wasserman Schultz added: "What Republican tea party extremists like Scott Walker are doing is they are grabbing us by the hair and pulling us back. It is not going to happen on our watch." The Democratic candidate for governor there, Mary Burke, was backtracking:

MSNBC Hypes Scott Walker's 'Scramble' For Reelection
By Laura Flint | August 13, 2014 | 4:05 PM EDT

MSNBC did its best to hype the “really tight race” facing Republican incumbent and possible 2016 candidate Governor Scott Walker on the August 13 edition of The Daily Rundown.  Guest host Chris Cillizza teased a segment on the Wisconsin Republican’s re-election twice in the first half hour of his 9 a.m. show, boasting “a look at Scott Walker's biggest fight yet” and the “tough road to re-election ahead of him.” MSNBC even featured the clip on their website, with the title “Scott Walker starts to scramble for November.”

The overblown segment was barely over one minute long, in which Cillizza began the discussion by asking NBC news political reporter Carrie Dann, “How much trouble is Scott Walker in?” Based on the tone of The Washington Post reporter, the fact that the Wisconsin governor celebrated his nomination with “a big rally last night,” even though “no one thought he wasn't going to be the Republican nominee” was a bad sign. [See video below. Click here for MP3 audio]

AP's Bauer Scrubs Democrat Mary Burke's Lie About Unemployment Under Scott Walker, Generates Another of His Own
By Tom Blumer | March 24, 2014 | 4:48 PM EDT

It takes quite an effort to for a Democrat to produce a campaign ad which is so obviously and blatantly false that it virtually forces the left-loving Politifact to promptly issue a "Pants on Fire" evaluation. But that's what Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke managed to do when her campaign's opening TV ad claimed that "under (incumbent Republican Governor Scott) Walker, unemployment’s up." 

Two weeks later on March 18, when Burke was asked if she regretted promoting such a self-evident lie, her answer was "No." Somehow, that's not news. Imagine if a Republican or conservative ... oh, you know the rest. Additionally, and as if on cue, Scott Bauer at the Associated Press felt compelled to write a story with cherry-picked and clearly outdated data about how job creation in Wisconsin under Walker has been less than the governor thought he would achieve when he ran for office in 2010, and even gave Burke's blatant lie the appearance of truth (bolds are mine):