Great news for Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Louis Butler: There is a pent-up demand among voters, who want to vote for a black man. 

Who knew?

It wasn't until Mike Nichols, the Journal Sentinel's Ozaukee/Washington County columnist, pointed it out that it became obvious.

Nichols's column appeared almost two weeks ago, but I was afraid if I wrote about it earlier that the Butler campaign would quit working, knowing that his election on April 1 is inevitable.

Nichols was writing about Geraldine Ferraro's amazing claim that Barack Obama would not be where he is -- the leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination -- if he weren't a black man.

Gerry has a point, Nichols says. After all, why is Obama where he is, instead of Wisconsin's Russ Feingold?

The two have some differences, Nichols admits:

Sure, there are differences, things like religion and marital status. [Nichols doesn't say it, but Feingold is Jewish and twice-divorced.] Obama has a more youthful appeal; Feingold more experience. At 55, Feingold has 16 years in the Senate. Obama, at 46, has three... Then there is the difference some would prefer not be mentioned: race.

There are other differences, of course, any of which could be the reason Dems are on the verge of nominating Obama rather than Feingold. I think this is one of the big ones: Feingold didn't run, Obama did.

Back to Nichols:

There is something that has pushed him to another political level, beyond people like the Wisconsin senator, who saw he couldn't win, and people like Hillary Clinton, who will probably come to the same conclusion.

Ferraro thinks that something is race, and maybe it is... Race isn't the only dimension of the man. Far from it. But it matters and maybe even helps more than it hurts in attracting voters right now.

To be fair, Nichols wrote this before the recent uproar over Obama's pastor, and his historic speech on race in America. He might not think Obama's blackness is such an asset today.

But even when he wrote it, it was off the beam. Barack Obama didn't accomplish what he did in the primaries and caucuses because he was a black man -- he accomplished it in spite of being a black man. That is what makes it all the more remarkable.

Obama didn't win overwhelmingly in a state like Wisconsin, where African-Americans are a small percentage of the statewide vote, because he is black.

That's what makes Ferraro's claim so ridiculous, if not racist. I happen to think she blurted out, then repeated, her innermost thoughts. She really thinks that Obama is getting some special consideration because he is a black man. At least she didn't say anything about Affirmative Action. But aren't you just sick of black men getting all the breaks? The few who aren't in prison, I mean.

Only one African-American has been elected to statewide office in Wisconsin's 160 years of statehood, and that was a woman, Vel Phillips, who served as secretary of state.

No black man has been elected statewide. Justice Butler could be the first. But last time he ran for the court, in 2000, almost two-thirds of the voters picked a white woman, Diane Sykes, for the job.

Maybe they didn't know Louis Butler was a black man. Or maybe things have changed in eight years, so that what might have been a handicap then is now an advantage.

Butler's opponent, Michael Gableman, probably deserves credit, not blame, for those TV commercials displaying Butler's face next to a black man who committed rape. Now that there's no doubt about Butler's race, he's probably home free.

Out in Mike Nichols's territory, the last time Butler ran he got 22% of the vote in Ozaukee County and 21.3% in Washington County.

Of course, that time he was running against a Milwaukee County conservative, a circuit judge with a defensible record and a well-known last name. This time he's running against an unknown political hack from the boondocks with a lackluster record (and that's giving him the benefit of the doubt.)

It's a new day in America, we're told.  Black men now have an advantage in politics.

We'll see how it goes on Tuesday.

 If you're a Butler supporter, despite those assurances, you might want to get out and vote anyway.