The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that the Democratic Party of Wisconsin is holding its convention in the Wisconsin Dells this weekend. (No, I’m not going.)

On Wisconsin Public Radio Friday we discussed two of the Democrats’ campaign platforms, same-sex marriage and legalization of marijuana. To the first, I said that what the Democrats (or for that matter Republicans) did was immaterial since the same-sex marriage issue is in the process of being decided in the federal courts.

As for the second, I pointed out that though there may be majority support for decriminalization, if not full legalization, of the wacky weed, no one who counts in a political sense appears to favor it, including gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke, beyond medical use. The Democrats controlled all of state government in 2009 and 2010, yet failed to decriminalize or legalize pot.

To the extent that party platforms are interesting or pertinent to normal people, though, it’s more interesting to read the parts of the Democratic platform that differ with the Democrats’ presumptive top-of-the-ticket candidate, as Nathan Schacht observes:

As reported by mainstream, liberal and conservative media sources, Burke’s family business – Trek Bicycles – has taken advantage of foreign workforces to replace U.S. manufacturing jobs in the vast majority of their bike production.

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, in 2004 Trek move some of the jobs at its Whitewater,Wisconsin facility abroad. According to the report, Trek said it wanted to transfer some bicycle assembly work to China. Trek seems to have accomplished their assembly work transfers as according to Trek they only produces about 10,000 of the 1.5 million bikes they sell each year in the United States. The liberal magazine, The Progressive, points out that the Trek 520, one of the company’s most well-known bikes, is made in China as of 2013.

According to the DPW platform that Burke would be expected to back, outsourcing is a major problem:

We must resist outsourcing by eliminating tax breaks to employers who ship jobs overseas and creating incentives to bring jobs back to the U.S.

Presumably, this means the Burke campaign should begin pushing for policies that actually attack Trek to force them to bring jobs back to the U.S.

Another Milwaukee Journal Sentinel report from last fall reported that the U.S. Department of Labor found that “up to 20 former Trek Bicycle employees are eligible for special federal aid via the Trade Adjustment Assistant program because they lost their jobs due to foreign trade.” As The Progressive noted, “while it is nice to hear Mary Burke bemoan unfair trade deals, the reality is that she in past has fought for them and personally profited from them.”

Not to worry, because the DPW platform addresses “unfair trade” as well. “We oppose unfair trade,” the DPW platform states. According to The Progressive:

During her time at Trek, Burke served as a board member on the Bicycle Parts Suppliers Association (BPSA), a powerful trade association that, among other things, has lobbied for weakening tariffs and free trade.  In addition, they’ve defended Chinese manufacturing and fought regulations during the recent Chinese manufacturing lead paint scare.

If Burke is to support the DPW platform, as the platform demands, she would have to begin campaigning against Trek’s outsourcing, and the very trade practices she pushed for as an executive.

Actually, Burke’s candidacy represents an opportunity for her to educate her party, which has been anti-business with rare exception (see Lucey, Patrick) since the old Progressives were absorbed into her party in the late 1940s. Whether or not Democrats care to admit it, Wisconsin competes against every other state, and other countries, for businesses. For the most part, Wisconsin doesn’t get businesses to move into this state, because of our unfavorable taxes and overregulation; Wisconsin’s schools and workers’ work ethic are overrated, and quality of life is usually last on the list of priorities of businesses looking to relocate. (As if Wisconsin’s Siberian winters could be considered part of our “quality of life.”) The businesses that are here were created here.

Burke’s company made a bottom-line decision to move manufacturing to China based on what was good for the company. That is because profit — more money coming in than going out — is the number one priority of a company. Nothing happens without profits. Moreover, the purpose of a business is to serve its customers. Employment is the result of serving customers; it is not the purpose of a business. (And, by the way, paying employees more than they’re worth to the business is a good way to eliminate your profit.)

It makes you wonder how serious Burke really is about running for governor. The Democratic Party espouses policies that are and would be bad for state businesses generally and Burke’s family’s business specifically. (Even though Burke claims to not be involved in management anymore, she is still an owner, and thus still gets a share of Trek’s profits.) Burke to date has not done one single thing to change her party’s wrongheaded views, and she’s supposed to be the top of the Democratic ticket.