Friday, August 8, 2014

Burke Vs. Walker: A Charitable Comparison

As most people already know, I am less than enthused about the gubernatorial election this year.  I don't find Mary Burke, the Democrat's hand-picked candidate to be satisfactory and all too much like Scott Walker for my taste.  As examples on why I am not so excited is that the two biggest points of discussion thus far has been which candidate has out-outsourced the other and to which businesses would be better to give the taxpayers' money.

That said, there are distinctive differences between the two.  Burke stands for more freedoms for the people,
including supporting marriage equality, women's rights, voters' rights and collective bargaining.  As we all know, Walker is opposed to equality of any sort, denying rights to gays, women, minorities and workers in both the private and public sector.

Another area of great difference is simply their personalities, as displayed through their attitudes and actions towards others, especially those in need.

It is well known that Burke is a multimillionaire.  But unlike Chris "Boss" Abele, who uses his vast fortune to consolidate power in his hands and attempt to build an empire, Burke actually took her money and time to do good for the community:
After working in that position for nine years, she got very involved in her volunteer work and decided to leave Trek and devote all of her time to her philanthropic efforts, which have a special focus on education.

She’s on the board of directors of the Burke Family Foundation, which has awarded grants to the Urban Ecology Center, the Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra, First Stage and other organizations that focus on underserved kids’ education and closing the achievement gap.

While working at Trek, she also became a volunteer tutor at the Boys & Girls Club of Dane County, then served as chair of its board of directors and led a $6.2 million fundraising effort for a new facility. She developed AVID/TOPS, a college-prep program for students who wouldn’t have been helped otherwise. The program is close to her heart. Its first class of 85 just graduated and 90% are enrolled in post-secondary education.

Burke said she often thinks of one student, Daniel, who wanted to stay in the program so badly after his family moved that he took multiple buses across town to get to school and his job and stay involved in sports and the AVID/TOPS program.

“It was his dream to go to college and he knew how much this program was helping him,” Burke said. “He entered Edgewood College this fall, realizing his dream. There are a lot of kids out there like Daniel who have a dream and we need to make sure that we are supporting them in that dream so that they do learn how to set that vision for themselves and take responsibility for making that happen.”
When it comes to Scott Walker, it's a completely different story.

The only charity that I could find that Walker was involved in - not counting his crony capitalism and just plain cronyism - was Operation Freedom.

As the gentle reader surely remembers, Operation Freedom was the supposed charity fund for veterans and gave his blessing to his long time friend and campaign worker, Tim Russell, to raid the fund for Walker's campaign website and Russell's own peccadilloes.
their families that Walker had set up as a thinly-veiled campaign stunt.  Not only was Walker using Operation Freedom as a campaign stunt, but he apparently also

I would be remiss if I also did not mention one other prime example of Walker's idea of giving.  That would be the infamous Black Friday email he sent out telling people not to bother giving their children Christmas presents.  Instead, he thought people should take the money they would have spent on the gifts and just go ahead and give it to him.

The acts of charity which has been done or not done by Burke and Walker aren't enough in itself to decide to vote for.  What they do show is which one is more of a decent human being and less likely to govern through malfeasance.

Clearly, Burke wins this comparison hands down.

14 comments:

  1. Burke will have to lean a bit to get anything done. However you know a Repub house and Senate will treat her like Congress treats Obama. Her measure may be her use of the Frankenstein veto to get things done. My main goal is to have a Dem gov in 2020, the next date to redistrict.

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    1. Hopefully she is ready for the character assassination and verbal attacks that will be unleashed on her from the Walker followers, and I mean followers. Every one of the senators other than Dale Schultz have bowed down to Walker and they will do everything they can to make themselves look like they were not his pawns. A good example is Luther "I will not vote for any voucher expansion" Olsen. He should have been kicked to the curb just for being gutless.
      As far as who should vote for her, here is a list: Anyone with children or grandkids, anyone with morals, women, veterans, teachers, anyone who does any work for local or state government, environmentalists, anyone who uses Wisc waters, home owners, renters, business owners who lost their butts because of others lost wages, businesses who are going to hire anyone, .......... The list goes on and on until I can't really fathom who would vote for the idiot we now have in the office.

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  2. bottom line is,

    Burke is decent,

    walker is not

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  3. We don't hear much anymore about Walker's Eagle Scout integrity or his preacher man's son's status. Walker hasn't the time to look out for others as he's all wrapped up in looking out for himself!

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  4. Thank you for reminding us that this really is more of a contest between greed and giving, and good vs. evil. Only one of these candidates has a record of investing in Wisconsin in multiple ways, and that's Burke.

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  5. I wonder if Burke believes in the freedom to decide whether to join a union or not?

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  6. I wonder what would happen if it came out that she a Trek were aware of Lance Armstrong's cheating and were helping to facilitate the cover up ? I hear Lance has been signing like a canary lately under oath.

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  7. Thanks for bringing up the character issue. Anon 8/8 @ 4:44 speculates on a hypothetical what if. There are no what ifs about Scott Walker. He is a lying, cheating, thieving, self serving career politician who wishes to line his pockets and skrew everyone else. In summar a poor excuse for a human being.

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  8. Who would you feel more comfortable with as your mother's durable power of attorney...Scott Walker or Mary Burke?

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  9. Hello Wisconsin. Scott Walker wants to be your Governor so he can leave you to run for President. If he succeeds, R. Kleefisch is your Governor. That makes Joel the first lady...tee hee hee. Can you imagine the drunk carp spearing parties and shit faced shots fired from duck blinds perched on the Maple Bluffs at the Governor's Mansion? We know Walker has no respect for Rebecca and threw her under the bus in the released Walkergate email. The good news is the cost of security for Governor Kleefisch goes waaaaaaay down. Seriously, you cannot make this shit up.

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    1. Not Kleefisch. Vos will pull a sneaky power move to get another address to stash another concubine. Shhh. Don't tell MIchelle.

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  10. Classic Capper. He makes sure that we all know - as if he has never left us in any doubt - that he's no Burke fan. But then he says well, at least she's not the Devil Incarnate like Walker. I don't know whether Burke will win but what I do know with absolute certainty is that we're in for the mother of all "I told you so" posts either in November or the first time Burke strays a toe over the Progressive line.

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  11. Amazing. You want to go back to the days of Doyle? High taxes, raging dept, misuse of power by the unions. A teacher union out of control and fleecing the public. Walker has made this state right. Remove a huge dept without raising taxes and as sad as it is, securing the largely undeserved pensions of the unions. Compare Wi to you liberal buddies in Illinois and see how they compare.
    Liberals, as always, completely clueless and out of touch with reality. If Burke wins, the state instantly starts going down the rat hole again.

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    1. Hmm, taxes are higher now than they were under Doyle - unless you're one of his generous, wealthy campaign donors.

      The debt (I think that's the word you were looking for) is also higher under Walker.

      But what I really want to know is how does one "deserve" a pension, which is nothing more than deferred compensation.

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