The focus groups who reportedly picked out Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke were reportedly looking for …

1) a woman, 2) who is highly educated, 3) who has a business background and is literally a job creator, 4) who has deep roots in Wisconsin and 5) is not a sitting politician.

You would think a person meeting the third and fifth of those criteria would not sound like the fifth criterion. But when the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel interviewed Burke for the first time, they got …

The Democratic challenger to Gov. Scott Walker said she would seek to avoid raising state or local taxes but stopped short of pledging no increases if elected.

In an interview Monday with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, former Trek Bicycle Corp. executive and state commerce secretary Mary Burke also said she had voted against a 2006 constitutional amendment that prohibited gay marriage and civil unions and supported allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry.

Burke, a Madison school board member, also said she would oppose making Wisconsin a right-to-work state but declined to weigh in on whether she would support a unionizing effort at the Waterloo bicycle manufacturer that was founded by her father.

On big questions such as taxes, Burke remained careful with her answers and avoided big pledges, saying simply she wanted government to be accountable and live within its means.

“I’d want to look at the totality. We collect revenue in a lot of different ways. I certainly wouldn’t look at raising (taxes), but I’d also want to look at it in the context of our finances, our budgets …” Burke said.

In other answers, Burke said she opposed a law passed by Republicans requiring voters to show a photo ID at their polling place and said she was skeptical of an effort to change the state’s American Indian mascot law for schools. …

In the interview, Burke made clear she opposed a so-called right-to-work law, which would prohibit requirements that workers in private companies pay labor dues even if they don’t belong to a union.

“The laws, as they stand on the books, work for Wisconsin,” Burke said.

Walker and GOP lawmakers passed a law in March 2011 that repeals most collective bargaining for most public employees, effectively putting right to work in place for government workers.

Burke declined to weigh in on whether Trek workers should be represented by a union.

“The issues regarding whether it’s Trek or any other company, I think, those lay with those specific companies,” she said. …

She said she wanted to better Walker’s progress on the state’s economy but offered relatively few specifics. To boost lagging rates of entrepreneurship in Wisconsin, Burke said the state should look at proven strategies for encouraging and supporting new businesses such as start-up accelerators like gener8tor in Madison.

Walker’s predecessor, Gov. James Doyle, famously said, “We should not, we must not, and I will not raise taxes.” That was a pledge (if you ignore fee increases) kept until Democrats took over both houses of the Legislature after the 2008 elections and Doyle decided he wasn’t going to run for reelection, and then all tax hell broke loose. “Raising revenue” is a buzzphrase for “tax increase” unless you can show how our overtaxed voters in Wisconsin won’t have more money coming out of their pockets for Govzilla.

Burke takes a minority (position) on voter ID, apparently because the Democrats think voter fraud is OK when it benefits them. I’d like to hear her explanation for why such schools as Mukwonago (Indians), Potosi (Chieftains), Belmont (Braves), and any school with “Warriors” as its nickname should knuckle under to the professionally offended or the Self-Esteem Caucus and spend taxpayer money to rid themselves of mascots and logos those school districts chose because of their positive, not negative, qualities.

Burke will have to figure out how to explain her role in Trek Bicycles and how that can translate to improving the state’s business climate. (For that matter, she’ll have to convince people in her own party that business climate matters.) She also will have to explain what she learned from being Doyle’s secretary of commerce and how to, again, improve the state’s business climate. (Hint: “Start-up generators” are necessary but not sufficient.) I’m not even sure how seriously one should take Burke’s comment about (the nonexistent) unions at Trek, given that her party’s official position is that government workers should be required to join and pay dues to unions. (Eliminating that was what Act 10 was about, but Burke, of course, opposes Act 10.)

And Burke really needs to do better at interviews than here. Someone seems to be telling Burke that all she needs to do is fork out millions of her dollars and be Not Scott Walker, and she’ll win. That’s not sufficient either. Challengers always have to convince voters not only to not vote for the incumbent, but to vote for the challenger.