The returns for the state supreme court race are still coming in, but hopes are not looking good for Louis Butler. At the moment 86% of the vote is in, and Butler is behind by almost exactly 11,000 votes.

This is a great disappointment here - we'd thought that the ludicrous ads run by Gableman, the WMC, and others would have put him in the losing column at the end of the night, but that seems unlikely now (though we're still holding out hope). The idea that you can flim-flam so many voters with the notion that doing your job as a defense attorney, or using "loopholes" like the constitution in defense of a client are points of shame is appalling.

The last two supreme court elections in the state are the best argument I have seen for either removing this office from the popular vote, or for instituting complete public financing for court campaigns. Certainly anyone who needed to make their decision in this race based on the television ads would not have had any idea how to vote. The buckets of money poured into this election by WMC and other special interests assured that the advertising would be deceptive, negative, and deplorable. And the sad story of the evening is that the biggest victim in this election is not Louis Butler, but the truth.