The World's Okayest Guitar Player urges you to vote for Mary Burke!
Gov. Scott Walker and Wisconsin Republicans are in panic mode. On Thursday, the
Wisconsin Reporter, a "news organization"
funded by the libertarian
Sam Adams Alliance and the conservative
Bradley Foundation, released a story that Mary Burke, the Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial candidate challenging Walker, was fired from her family's company, Trek Bicycle. The source of the story? A disgruntled former Trek executive, Gary Ellerman, who was
fired from the company in 2004 for poor performance.
The race for governor of Wisconsin is closer than the Walker camp ever thought it would be. Walker has had two not-so-great debate performances, and he has proven that he is a perpetual liar—one only needs to look at the tale he spun about his bald spot to see that he has a problem with the truth:
The bald spot, he said, was the result of a repair incident in the kitchen when he banged his head on an open kitchen cabinet door while making repairs requested by his wife, Tonette.
She kept telling him to go to the doctor to get the scar on his head looked at, he said. When he finally did, the doctor said his hair would never grow back in that spot, the governor explained.
Just two days to go! Let's bring this race home! Sign up to make GOTV calls to Democrats.
I have hit my head many times, and I do not have a bald spot. Jump below the fold for more.
With the race being neck-and-neck and the lead changing with every poll released, it's impossible at this point to say who has the upper hand, which is likely the reason for the sudden smear campaign against Burke. The Burke campaign and Trek Bicycles have responded to the allegations being spread by Walker's minions:
Both Mary Burke and her brother, John Burke, the current head of Trek, denied the allegations Wednesday, calling them "character assassination."
Mary Burke was asked by a Green Bay reporter whether it was her decision to leave Trek that year. "Yes," Burke said. "Absolutely."
Trek also refuted the
allegations:
Mr. Ellerman was fired from Trek in 2004. His politically motivated characterizations of Mary and her tenure at Trek are inaccurate.
When Mary was in charge of Europe, she grew sales from $3 million to $50 million. In 1993 Mary decided that it was time for her to make a change and she left Trek.
Burke was then asked to return to the company in
1995:
"I actually rejoined Trek as director of Strategic Planning and Forecasting later, but that was at a point where we had decided we reorganized and eliminated the position that I had," Burke said.
Of course, leave it to the GOP-backed yellow journalism machine to make up another story once their first story started to fall apart. Now the
Wisconsin Reporter is claiming that Burke is changing her story and that she was not fired but downsized. I assume the next thing they will come up with after this is that she is President Obama's long lost sister and that she was also born in Kenya, or rumors will be spread that she is secretly a Bears fan.
Of course, the veracity of the source used by the Wisconsin Reporter is somewhat suspect. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has been trying to contact Gary Ellerman, Trek's former director of human resources, but have been unsuccessful at the time of this writing. In the meantime, the newspaper took a look at his Facebook page:
His public Facebook posts mostly share photos with conservative political messages, with a handful of them expressing extreme criticism of Obama.
In an Oct. 19 post, first lady Michelle Obama holds a photoshopped sign that says the president is a "homo" and that she is a man. In another, Obama is referred to in crude terms by former Gen. James Mattis. Yet another from this week suggests the Democratic president embraces Communism. An Obama supporter is labeled in an Oct. 21 post as a "criminal accomplice."
On June 2, he posted a photo that pictures a swastika and says, "When the German people first saw the swastika, it was a symbol of Hope and Change. Think about it."
The
Wisconsin Reporter, desperate for anything to attack Mary Burke, finds a former employee, obviously a rabid partisan, to tell a fantastic tale that is not supported by any facts in order to smear her just days before the election.
Wisconsin Republicans are afraid. They know how close this election is. Right now, it all depends on turnout, and the Republicans are using every dirty trick in the book to dampen Democratic turnout. Lying about Burke's past is just one way to do that. What is sad is that real news organizations have picked up this story and have run with it. The Wisconsin press should be ashamed of themselves for running with a false, misleading story so close to the election. But we should be used to this by now as Walker, for the most part, has had the Wisconsin press in his back pocket his entire term.
Please help make this the last diary I ever have to write about Scott Walker, except for one wishing him well in his future endeavors as the manager of the local Subway when he leaves office in January.
Just two days to go! Let's bring this race home! Sign up to make GOTV calls to Democrats.