Republicans call her “Millionaire Mary,” but Mary Burke has plenty of assets aside from her wealth to make her a strong contender to derail the reelection of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, along with his dreams of the presidency.I am here in Wisconsin minutely following politics day by day — every single day — and I have never noticed the moniker "Millionaire Mary." I asked Meade if he'd ever heard that, and he said no. So Clift can't get 5 words into her column without hitting a blatantly false note. Scrolling down, I see the term comes from Burke herself, whom Clift interviewed:
Burke... was recruited to run for the Madison school board, a race that she won in 2012 with the help of $128,000 of her own money. “Millionaire Mary, they’re just using that,” she says of Republican efforts to denigrate her wealth. “I have been very clear that what I can put in is a fraction of what’s needed,” she says.Republicans denigrate wealth?
Googling, I see the descriptor "millionaire" used occasionally in GOP headlines with her full name, e.g. "Millionaire Mary Burke Says More Money for Taxpayer Is 'Irresponsible,'" but that's quite different from having a standard nickname using just her first name, "Millionaire Mary," like "Typhoid Mary" (or the more political — and, incidentally, more phallocratic — "Tricky Dick" and "Slick Willy").
But here's an article from PolitiFact, last November, specifically about the use of political nicknames in the Wisconsin governor's race:
