Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke voted for President Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012.
That fact seems pretty commonsense, since Obama is planning to campaign for Burke on Tuesday, as the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported on Thursday. Burke’s campaign confirmed to TPM that she voted for Obama twice, first in 2008 and then in 2012.
Earlier on Thursday Republicans thought they’d caught Burke redhanded as an example of yet another Democrat (after Kentucky Democratic Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes) trying to avoid saying who she voted for when approached on the street. The Republican Governors Association on Thursday emailed out a clip of Burke being asked on the street whether she voted for Obama. She ignored the tracker.
“In September 2008, Mary Burke was more than happy to express her support for Barack Obama’s presidential bid,” RGA press secretary Jon Thompson said in the email. “But today, when confronted with the question of who she voted for in 2008 and 2012 – it’s nothing but crickets.”
Burke Communications Director Joe Zepecki called the clip a “mindless political stunt.”
“This is simply the latest desperate attempt by Scott Walker to distract from his own failures – which range from a lagging economy (Wisconsin is dead last in the Midwest in private sector job creation over the last three years, according to the most accurate data) to the ongoing scandals and criminal investigations following him at every turn,” Zepecki said in an email to TPM. “Wisconsin voters see this for what it is, a mindless political stunt by a career politician desperate to hold onto his job.”
Republicans have repeatedly tried to create a repeat of the Grimes episode. In Georgia, Democrat Michelle Nunn was asked the same question on the street. She later told The Washington Post that she voted for Obama.
