Still another liberal outlet took a whack at Autumn Burke last week (www.laprogressive.com), and by now the rookie state Assembly candidate from Inglewood must feel as if she is the lone nail residing in a dense community of hammers.
She has been taunted for months about riding her parents’ reputations – mainly her mom’s – into her first elective office. Unless she is orating in abandoned alleys at midnight, Ms. Burke has done nothing to establish a separate, worthy identity.
Her invisibility, while holding her tongue with both hands, should worry any voter with a remote hope of being represented in Sacramento.
A girl who grew accustomed to the more polished side of life from an early age, Ms. Burke is updating the century-old gimmick of the Invisible Candidate who conducted his campaign from his front porch.
The daughter of retired County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke and millionaire businessman Bill Burke, Ms. Autumn appears to be running such a non-campaign that she likely would lose even if all of her rivals quit the race this afternoon.
She already has clinched the Odd Duck of the Year prize.
Having ridden a gravy train the first 40 years of her life, she may emerge from the June 3 primary with dripping gravy all across her pretty face, a pity because there may be a cache of genuine talent welling deep inside.
Nearly all of her public relations people are believed to have been recruited from the whacko who dictates to North Korea. The PR girls, with one possible exception, cough, sneeze and wheeze because of a terrible allergy to the truth.
She rarely gives interviews, and has turned down this newspaper 10 times.
Below is the www.laprogressive.com story by Teka-Lark Fleming:
AutumnBurke is a wolf in a Democrat’s clothing.
[img]2590|right|Autumn Burke||no_popup[/img]In February, state Assembly District 62 candidate Autumn Burke sat down with me and told me that she cared about the environment, but she does not. Burke also said she was for small business development, and she is not. She said she was for economic diversity for all of the 62nd Assembly, but her strategic mailings (with apparently no sustainability themed campaign literature east of Crenshaw) shows she clearly feels some sections of the district are more deserving of choice than others.
If you’re a Republican, vote for Burke for the 62nd because she’s your gal.
If you are pro-business, anti-people, you want fracking, you want to limit your civil rights and you like drinking dirty water, by all means please vote for Burke because that is who is paying for Burke.
You are who pays for you. PACs funded by dark money from the biggest corporate environmental polluters and civil rights violations in corporate America fund Burke’s 62nd state Assembly District campaign.
Burke is from a wealthy, connected family. Her father William Burke is the president and founder of the L.A. Marathon. Her mother is retired L.A. County Supervisor Yvonne Burke who did a lovely job overseeing the decline of South L.A., possibly because for most of her tenure Yvonne did not live in the district she represented.
Autumn Burke is taking money not because she needs the money, but because she lacks ethics. She could have easily run in the 62nd and made it to at least the runoffs even with no job experience and a slew of failed businesses that, according to the California Secretary of State, are all suspended. She could make it where she is for nothing more than who her mother is and who her father pays.
She does not need the dark money-funded PACs her campaign is now swimming in.
These PACs — essentially owned by big oil corporations — are paying for mailers with smiling members from the Sierra Club and happy firefighters. These images give voters the impression that anti-union corporations and big oil aren’t paying for Burke’s campaign. But that is exactly who is paying for her campaign.
Burke has taken money from Civil Justice Assn. of California whose board consists of ExxonMobil, Shell and Dow Chemical Company, among others.
The board supported AB 227, which weakened Prop. 65. Prop 65 is the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986.
AB 227 was opposed by the following groups:
• Breast Cancer Action
• Breast Cancer Fund
• Californians for a Healthy and Green Economy
• Center for Environmental Health
• Clean Water Action California
• Coalition for Clean Air
• Consumer Attorneys of California
• Consumer Federation of California
• Environmental Law Foundation
• Environmental Working Group
• Pesticide Action Network North America
• Sierra Club California
Burke is supported by Keeping Californians Working, which was just recently infused with $500,000 from Chevron.
Burke is supported by Alliance For California’s Tomorrow, funded in large part by Occidental Oil and Gas Corporation. OXY is currently battling it out in Carson to build 200 oil wells in one of its residential communities.
If you’re a Democrat, why would you take money from these groups? If you have wealthy parents and a community of Democrats behind you, why would you need to take money from these groups?
If you purport to be a Democrat and you are taking money from these groups, it is because you either have no integrity or you are a mindless puppet for someone else.
Burke is taking money from these groups because, while they may not be her values, they most definitely are her parents’ values.
Autumn Burke is not running for the 62nd Assembly. Her father’s business associates are.
There will be expectations when she wins. She has the resources and has shown throughout this campaign that she is willing to lie and manipulate to get what she wants regardless of what the people think.
She is running for Wall Street not Main Street.
The great thing about the 62nd District is that though it is in L.A., it still has a great small-town feel. You can raise your kids in Westchester, El Segundo, Morningside Park or Del Aire, and you can still do that here on a teacher’s salary. You can do that here with a small family-owned restaurant or coffee shop. Burke the candidate, paid for by “drill-it big oil” and “build-it real estate,” wants to end that for the 62nd.
Her campaign is financed with people who want to break the 62nd.
The 62nd Assembly District is the last holdout in middle class Los Angeles. Once it falls and they destroy Culver City, no one but the wealthy will be able to live in Los Angeles.
Her campaign wants to destroy the Ballona Wetlands. It wants to move you out of your single-family home in Westchester, it wants to turn Venice into New York City with better surfing and it wants to frack, acidize and suck every bit of oil out of the Inglewood Oil Field — and anywhere else that might have a little bit of oil — regardless of the consequences.
To find out who Autumn Burke is, simply look at who funds her campaign.
She is not a Democrat for the people. She is a Republican who is ready and willing to be a shill for big oil and big business.
