Mary Burke, Scott Walker’s gubernatorial opponent in Wisconsin, plagiarized large swaths of her jobs plan from previous Democrat candidates. As first reported at BuzzFeed, huge chunks, full paragraphs were copied almost word for word by the Democrat without attribution. After plagiarizing the jobs program, Burke then went out of her way to take credit for it:

I’ve read through a lot of economic development plans in putting together this plan and none of them were four pages long. We’re talking about a state’s economy, we’re talking about our future and it deserves some serious thinking and some real detail and some real plans. So, yes and setting goals, making sure you have plans to achieve those goals, and that you have the benchmarks for knowing if you’re on track.

The reference to the “four pages long” plan is Burke mocking Governor Walker’s plan. As Red State points out:

You see what she’s doing here – Burke is on the Madison school board, and Walker (as is well known) is a college dropout. She’s sending a none-too-subtle message that Walker isn’t that smart and doesn’t do his homework, and she’s not like that.

So this is not a case where a Democrat simply hired a consultant to stick a jobs plan on her campaign website. Burke not only claimed to have worked hard to put the plan together, she used her “self-made” plan to taunt Walker. Apparently, she’s been doing this for months as she hands out her plagiarized jobs plan to voters during campaign events.

The race in Wisconsin is currently tight as a tick, and Democrats know 2014 is the last chance to punish Walker for the sin of stopping Wisconsin’s greedy public sector union bosses from turning the Dairy State into Illinois.

Moreover, a third win (along with his first win for governor, Walker won a bitter recall election) in a blue state could help propel Walker into a 2016 presidential bid. Democrats are rightly worried about going up against a reform-minded, non-DC, Midwestern GOP presidential nominee who has already proven he can withstand any and all Hell unleashed by every corner of the Left.

All of this explains why a desperate Associated Press ran to Burke’s rescue Monday with the argument that, although Burke copied the work of others without attribution and proudly took credit for it, she did not commit plagiarism:

The Democrat running for Wisconsin governor acknowledges her campaign lifted policy platforms, including some exact language, from like-minded candidates.

Republicans quickly charged plagiarism, but Mary Burke is just the latest in a long line of politicians in both parties who have shared slogans, talking points and campaign materials. With Burke locked in an extremely tight race with Republican Gov. Scott Walker, the practice is putting a spotlight on how much leeway those running for office should have when presenting ideas as their own.

Democrats sure got it good.

John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC