Gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke’s campaign is under scrutiny following a scandal in which parts of her jobs plan were discovered to be plagiarized.
After a Buzzfeed report showed that parts of Burke’s plan appeared to be lifted from passages from various campaigns, the Burke campaign responded by firing political consultant Eric Schnurer, who worked on writing the plan.
Burke told Gannett Wisconsin Media Friday that it was not correct to call the situation plagiarism, since Schnurer copied the content from work he had done for previous politicians.
“Certainly we did not expect that [Schnurer] would take exact verbiage that he had written and provided to other plans,” Burke said. “But these are ideas that I endorse and should be used in Wisconsin to ensure that Wisconsin has a leading economy, not a lagging economy.”
University of Wisconsin journalism professor Mike Wagner said although there have been examples in history in which charges of plagiarism have derailed campaigns, he does not think this would have the same effect.
“I’m not convinced that what she did was plagiarism,” Wagner said. “She paid a political consultant to give her advice, and she took what she paid for.”
Wagner said the decision to accept that information was bad judgment, but it is unlikely she will lose her any of her current supporters. For voters who are just starting to pay attention to the campaigns, however, he sad they may see this as a lack of seriousness in Burke’s plan.
Wagner said how she handles this situation would be important when it comes to voters who do not know her very well.
“She acted quickly, fired the consultant. That was a smart move,” Wagner said. “It’s usually best to just admit you were wrong and try to move on. The longer political candidates let these things twist in the wind, the worse it usually is for them.”
Still, Republicans are taking the opportunity to slam her campaign, accusing her of violating the plagiarism ethics of Madison Metropolitan School District, where she works as a board member, as well as universities she has attended, including Georgetown, London School of Economics and Harvard.
“It’s a sad day for Wisconsin when the Democratic nominee for governor misleads voters by offering a plagiarized jobs plan, in which she has staked her entire candidacy. Wisconsin deserves better, and its clear that Mary Burke cannot be trusted to lead our state,” Stephan Thompson, Walker’s campaign manager, said.
UW journalism professor and law expert Robert Drechsel said while there will not be any legal issues associated with this situation, it is an embarrassing incident for Burke’s campaign.
He said when language is borrowed that way, even if it is a case of a consultant who wrote the same things for various candidates, it is still plagiarism.
“At the very least, it’s pretty damn lazy and it shouldn’t happen,” Drechsel said. “All it can do is make people all the more cynical, if that’s possible, about the political process itself. Burke certainly did the right thing by firing that consultant, I would too.”
