Mary Burke’s appearance on the Rachel Maddow show was less than inspiring in a number of ways, not the least of which was her obvious discomfort answering questions directly in front of a national TV audience.
I know we’re all supposed to be nice to her ( especially misogynistic old white guys like myself ) because she’s new to all of this, but if she can afford to hire some of Obama’s campaign A-Team there must be some cash in the budget for a speech coach, eh?
Glad to see Rachel offered Walker equal time, but what about Senator Vinehout?
You expect Rachel Maddow to give equal time to people who might hypothetically possibly consider running for governor?
I haven’t decided yet, I demand my equal time.
Sheeeeesh.
DJ, at least you are consistent in your anti Vinehout mouthing.
Have you read any of her position papers, alternate budgets, numerous analyses and situation alerts? Have you ever attended any of her grass root meetings? Have you ever met her? Are you on her mailing list so you can be adequately informed? Have you read her bio?
Thanks Steve, I missed it.
JS isn’t covering it, which might mean that they’re angry that she’d bypass them to go national first, or I could just be flat wrong.
As far as delivery, first time on a national stage, I had no problems with her. I thought the deeper into the interview, the stronger she got. She knows Walker’s people are going over each syllable and every screen shot with a fine tooth comb. They’d love to get a screen capture of a frown. Didn’t see her giving them one. The camera likes her. That’s huge. She doesn’t have to say a lot.
Maddow’s done a lot of fine reporting, but to stay on the air, she has to cater to corporate Dems. The timing of this just screams the influence of the corporate/Obama/Clinton wing of the Democratic party. Maddow bathes that whole segment in awesome video of public sector workers. That enables Ms. Burke in her comments to completely skate on the issue of collective bargaining for ANYONE.
Ms. Burke doesn’t mention marriage equality (which reinforces how much Maddow is cooperating(her audience would at least like a mention of “marriage equality’)) and then takes a batting practice fastball about abortion up the middle for a single. Would have liked her to hit that one a lot harder. Up until the last two minutes it was all “Kumbaya, Walker’s been bad for the state, because he’s been divisive, Rodney King, can’t we all just get along, Kumbaya…..”
Hope I’m wrong, but all I see is a Chris Abele re-run. We’ll run a GLBT candidate, because everyone will assume they’re liberal. She’s talking about abortion, but other than that, she could have been a Republican. She couldn’t use the phrase “family supporting jobs, not word one about the environment, Lake Michigan, invasive species, sustainable mining,….
AFAIK, this is how you get on Maddow, promise the Obama/Clinton wing of the Democratic party that you’ll run as a pro-choice Republican. My fear is that the oligarchs see Burke’s campaign for Governor as Hillary’s path to winning the state in 2016.
Again, I hope I’m wrong.
OT, Steve, she should have hired you to run her campaign. Did you catch the “as I’ve traveled about the state,” line?
Where?
When?
Where’s video or audio of her “listening sessions?”
John,
My wife cringed when Maddow explained that this was Burke’s first national TV appearance. Sounded and looked like an explanation for, apology to, the viewers. I cringed imagining Maddow asking Burke about how many of Trek’s bikes are made overseas and mentioning how many manufacturing jobs Wisconsin has lost to offshoring over the last twenty years. Those questions will come some day.
That interview seemed to highlight her complete lack of policy positions except being marginally pro-choice, and that more as implied by the Planned Parenthood endorsement than by anything she actually said on the record. The idea that she is going to get the ground troops motivated to volunteer by running on style over substance seems very unlikely to me. We’ve heard the “leadership that brings people together” line before and how has that worked out over the last five years? If she is the only candidate running against Walker, I will obviously hold my nose and vote, but I will say I lost some respect for Maddow as an interviewer. Even a friendly format needs to demand a couple of straight answers occasionally.
Wish she would have mentioned this on Maddow:
“Burke underlines commitment to restoring collective bargaining”
“Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke said during a campaign visit to Sheboygan County that she “absolutely” would work with state legislators to restore collective bargaining powers to public employees, the Sheboygan Press reported.
Burke has avoided stating specific positions on a number of issues. But she has criticized Act 10, the law pushed by Gov. Scott Walker that stripped away most collective bargaining rights for most state and local government employees.
‘I think it’s one of the reasons why our economy hasn’t rebounded,” she said, according to the newspaper.'”
http://www.jsonline.com/news/burke-underlines-commitment-to-restoring-collective-bargaining-b99138778z1-231282921.html
Burke needs to evolve on legalizing the grass to get grass roots support, the activists I have been in touch with had some alarm bells go off that she is at the same place as Walker on that issue. If Burke wants to show how she will fund education and cut taxes, cutting out the laws on grass is a good place to start. My brother thought the Burke interview on Maddow went pretty well, I did not watch it, he just said Maddow did not ask Burke where she stands on legalizing the grass.