Xoff's BlogCommentary on state politics by Bill Christofferson, who often uses Xofferson or Xoff to shorten his 14-letter last name.
Christofferson, a recovered journalist and ex-political reporter, has been a Democratic strategist and consultant for 20 years and is now retired. He lives in Milwaukee. |
Here's a remarkably candid assessment of Wisconsin's new Supreme Court justice-elect, from conservative Christian Schneider of the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute.
Supporters of Justice Louis Butler have described Circuit Judge Michael Gableman, who beat him, as an empty suit foisted onto the voters in a dishonest, dirty campaign paid for by the state's biggest corporations.
Schneider, who formerly blogged anonymously as Dennis York, doesn't really disagree, as he says:
Interestingly, the people who seem to be most stunned about Gableman’s victory seem to be Gableman’s own supporters. While people who backed Gableman certainly agreed with his stated judicial philosophy, he never demonstrated a grasp of the issues most important to the Court....
So it’s hard to argue tactics - clearly his campaign knew what they were doing. But it doesn’t make it any less shocking that what was essentially a second-tier candidate ended up on the Supreme Court in a year that was supposed to be dominated by liberals...
Butler is smart and capable, and his punishment will be to move to a high-class law firm and make five times as much money as he made on the Supreme Court. So while it may hurt his feelings that he lost to Fred Flintstone now, he’ll do just fine. (In the final debate, you could see on Butler’s face that he couldn’t believe they got this guy to run against him.)
But now that he’s on the Court, Gableman will have to prove that he was worthy of all the support he received. He has to display an intelligence and grasp of the issues that seemed to be lacking in his campaign. In short, he has to bloom where the voters planted him.
You have to wonder whether Schneider, who seems well-read and up on popular culture, wrote that last line intentionally. I'm assuming he did.
"He has to bloom where the voters planted him."
Shades of "Chauncey Gardiner." Remember him, from "Being There?"
Chance,["Chauncey's" real name] the hero of Jerzy Kosinski's novel and now his screenplay, is a slow-witted innocent who has spent all his adult life in seclusion, working as a gardener and watching television. These two pursuits, and only these two, have shaped his notion of the rest of the world. "Being There" explains, among other things, how illiteracy, ignorance and a sweet attitude can lead to riches, fame and a glamorous social career.
Justice Gardiner, good luck.
Hat tip: Pundit Nation.
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The Garden Metaphor
Bill,
Yes, Justice Gableman appears to be something of a tender sprout that the WMC and other corporate interests have planted on the Wisconsin State Supreme Court. I fear that he will prove to be something of a weed who will threaten the fecundity of that august body but time will tell.
I, however, prefer a somewhat different gardening metaphor as a takeaway message from this week's election. Progressives must redouble our efforts to make sure that we are never out-maneuvered or out-organized in such a critical election ever again. Turnout was low and we simply must do a better job of "cultivating our gardens" as the young Candide learned so many years ago.
See the following link for more detail:
http://www.vitalsourcemag.com/index.php/blogs/ted/we-must-cultivate-our-...
Those gloating supporters of Gableman are telling those of us disappointed with the result that we should stop whining. After all, if the efforts of WEAC and the other third party groups supporting Justice Butler had prevailed we wouldn't be complaining.
And they are right. Let's get busy and make sure we aren't caught flat footed, even if we are destined to be out spent, ever again.
Ted
Nostalgia for a Supreme Court with integrity
Judge Gableman was appointed by Scott McCallum as Burnett County Circuit Court Judge right after Gableman hosted and organized a fundraiser, and made a substantial personal contribution, for Republican Governor McCallum's election campaign. Gableman used a government supplied office phone and facilities in this partisan campaign effort. McCallum appointed Gableman despite the merit selection panel recommending two other qualified persons for that office, and despite Gableman's application after the deadline, and despite the fact that Gableman had never lived in Burnett County.
Justice Butler was appointed by Jim Doyle to the Supreme Court after he was named the top candidate by the non-partisan merit selection process.
Louis Butler has been an excellent judge longer than Michael Gableman has been a mediocre lawyer.
Judge Gableman's campaign "benefitted" from the sleazy,misleading, distracting phony issue ads run by three secretive front groups, with much funding coming from not-revealed out of state connections. But that wasn't enough. Gableman himself ran disgusting ads promulgating lies and misinformation that discredited the judiciary, the legal profession, and the citizens of Wisconsin.
The Butler campaign itself ran no sleazy, misleading ads. And even the phony issue ads run by two unaffiliated but Butler-supporting groups, which might be characterized as sleazy, did not employ lies or intentionally misinform voters. The campaigns were not equivalent, or even on a par in terms of integrity.
Burnett County (where Gableman was a Circuit Court judge) has a population about 16,000. In the April Fools Day election, about 2400 people voted there. (That's fifteen percent of the population.) Burnett County voters favored Gableman by a higher percentage than any other county in the state. But other than the handful of people in Burnett County, the three Wisconsin counties that turned the coldest of shoulders to Justice Butler were Washington, Ozaukee, and Waukesha, contiguous suburban counties surrounding Milwaukee. Those three counties rejected Justice Butler by a vote of 2 to 1. That is about the same percentage that those three counties rejected Senator Feingold, and that is the same percentage by which those three counties twice approved the Administration of George W. Bush. The margin of votes that Waukesha County, alone, bestowed upon the dull, mediocre party hack Judge Gableman, was enough to hand the Wisconsin Supreme Court seat to him.
Not many voters know that the extremely intelligent, thoughtfully moderate, Justice Butler comes from a law enforcement family. Indeed, a very close relative of Justice Butler was a police officer who had been killed in the line of duty, Justice Butler was the first African-American ever to hold office in Wisconsin as a Supreme Court Justice. He voted with the majority on the Court 85 percent of the time (which is the second highest percentage among the seven sitting Justices) , and Justice Butler voted to uphold criminal convictions in 97 percent of the cases considered by the Supreme Court.
When third-stringer Gableman takes office, it will be the first time ever that not one Justice of the Supreme Court will have professional/judicial experience rooted in Milwaukee (which is Wisconsin's largest city, with one-sixth of the population of the entire state).
When Justice Butler lost this election, by about 20,000 votes, Wisconsin lost the opportunity to thank him appropriately for his careful, reflective, impartial, independent work on behalf of the people of the state. When the electorate succumbed to the multi-million dollar attack of the sleazy, misleading, lying, phony issue ads, funded in secret from unknown corporate sources, Wisconsin lost the opportunity to have the proud honor of electing a Supreme Court Justice who would have been not only the first African-American ever elected by the people to that office here, but also one of the most qualified, most deserving, most intelligent and thoughtful Justices, Wisconsin has ever had.
what BS, plain and simple,
what BS, plain and simple, Gableman won because Wisconsin wanted a conservative judge who upholds the laws as written rather than being an activist judge who invents new law from the bench. Liberals are fucking cowardly whiners, you GOT your asses kicked and then you are shocked when it happens. Next up Shirley Abrahamson, she will be destroyed in 2009 election
Yet another well-considered opinon
I never cease to be amazed by the viewpoint that a right-leaning judge "upholds the laws as written" and a left-leaning judge "invents new law from the bench". Certainly laws that shield business from paying for their own mistakes, that put taxation on the backs of the poor and middle class while favoring the rich, and that mock the actual words of the Constitution must qualify as "inventing new law". In your own short yet unsavory note, you seem to conflate "conservatism" with "upholding the laws as written". Surely, the laws are neither conservative nor liberal -- they're laws. The purposes of judges is to interpret the law. You're only willing to accept these interpretations if they meet with your values, whether the interpretations have anything to do with the laws or not.
I'm also always interested that these borderline obscene posts are always written by the same fellow - someone named "anonymous".
I don't think anyone is shocked at having their asses kicked. What we are is shocked by the fact that the electorate in the state is so easily misled by a lot of deceptive lies. Well, we probably should not be shocked by that, but we seem to still have enough faith in democracy to be shocked.
I think that Gableman won solely because of a lot of advertising playing on the fears of our citizens that are continually whipped up in hopes of controlling public opinion.
Steve Hanson
Cruiskeen Consulting LLC
Uppity Wisconsin
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