GOP Links Burke To Doyle Years While Candidate Highlights Career Outside Politics

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke is trying to distance herself from former Gov. Jim Doyle as Republicans step up their efforts to link the two.

Gov. Scott Walker said Burke would amount to a third Doyle term in office. The state Republican Party refers to the Doyle years as the “Doyle-Burke administration.”

Burke calls it a “complete mischaracterization.”

“I’m a very different person than Gov. Doyle is,” Burke said. “I come to this with a 30-year track record outside of politics.”

Burke’s career outside of politics was with Trek Bicycles, the company that her father founded. She was Doyle’s commerce secretary for almost three years, but as she notes, during that time, the state economy was in good shape.

“When I was commerce secretary, which was from the beginning of 2005 until October of 2007,” Burke said, “we had an unemployment rate of 4.8 percent and nearly 80,000 more jobs than we have currently. So, I’m very proud of the role that I played.”

It’s the time after Burke left office that Walker has focused on, when the recession hit, the state budget deficit soared and employment dropped.

Burke, however, said she shouldn’t be judged for those years — only for the years when she served in the Doyle administration.