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...

Even Charlie Sykes, who has no shame, is embarrassed -- not by the kind of campaign that WMC and Mike Gableman ran -- but by the candidate.  This is from someone Sykes describes as "a savy listener," so he must agree: 

Shame on conservatives from letting 2006 hangover result in putting up such a completely lame slate of candidates. Gleisner-Neubauer, (and even Gableman) were embarrassing choices to have on the ballot, and were the result of Republicans moping around buying into the "death of the party" woe is me message the MSM has been spinning

Embarrassing indeed. The beneficiary of WMC'S slimy largesse is someone who wouldn't make a pimple on Louis Butler's rear end.

Last year, you could make the argument -- ideology and ethics aside -- that Annette Ziegler and Linda Clifford were relatively well-matched in terms of intellect, experience and ability to serve.

No one can say that about Gableman and Butler.

That's the real tragedy. Not money in politics, or the influence of third-party groups, or even the misleading or outright false campaign against Butler.

The people elected a lightweight for a 10-year term. He'll probably be there for 30.

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.

... and that ain't much.

The Journal Sentinel "reports" on a blog entry headlined, "Gableman lands $10,000 donors":

Gableman received two $10,000 donations, the maximum allowed. They came Monday from Paul Singer and Bonnie Loeb of New York City. Both work for Elliot Management, reports at the Government Accountability Board show.

Wonder who those folks are? You won't find out from the newspaper, whose reporter Patrick Marley wasn't curious enough to find out. But Scot Ross at One Wisconsin Now fills in the blanks:

Paul Singer has come to Wisconsin in the form of $40,000 in late contributions from himself, an executive at his company and couple of people with Singer’s same last name.

Singer is the slug who’s made his money by operating so-called “vulture” funds, where he purchased government bonds from poor counties and got an enormous return on the loan. As Greg Palast reported, he jacked Peru for $58 million on an $11 million debt and sued Congo for $400 million on a $10 million debt.

A friend of mine, so miffed by a phone message left by a Gableman supporter (Coalition for America's Families,) got me this recording of the "loophole Louie" rhetoric coming from supporters of Gableman. JSonline doesn't_like the ads from this group. Some_outlets won't run the ads. Of course using telephone messages gets their point across without anyone watching.

The Annenberg Political Fact Check website has a page that finds fault on both sides. This independent source ends with a fairly disgusted opinion of Wisconsin Judicial politics. Listening to the telephone message against Butler, I have to agree.

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:

Ah, if only I did even 25% of the things for which I get the blame. 

This is an email I sent this morning to the Associated Press:

An  AP story in Sunday papers by Scott Bauer includes this false statement, which I would ask you to correct:

Gableman 's appointment to the bench has been called into question by the Greater Wisconsin Committee, a liberal group run by Democratic Party operative Bill Christopherson. It implied in an ad that Gableman won his appointment only after donating $1,250 to McCallum 's campaign.

Newsweek, for some reason, has decided to pay attention to the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, doing fact checks on the proliferation of commercials being aired by candidates and interest groups.

Like most who have viewed the ads, it has been harsh on Micheal Gableman's campaign for its Willie Horton-style ad and misleading claims about Justice Louis Butler.

My personal favorite is what it had to say about the Greater Wisconsin Committee, an issue advocacy group for which I formerly worked as a consultant, and now serve as a board member.

It's become almost standard practice by so-called "good government" groups like the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, which pretty much hates all campaign spending that isn't paid by the taxpayers, to use the word "shadowy" when referring to GWC.

Conservatives who find themselves on the wrong side -- the receiving end -- of GWC issue campaigns have taken up the terminology, right-wing bloggers always use it, and even some of the news media have picked it up.

You'd almost think the group's name was the Shadowy Greater Wisconsin Committee.

Location(s)

Michael Gableman continues to use the racial playbook from 1988's presidential race in his campaign for Supreme Court justice.

First it was a race-baiting commercial, reminiscent of the Willie Horton spot,  which is being roundly condemned in editorials:

Now Gableman has unveiled a new commercial which recalls the 1988 George Bush "revolving door" commercial, done by Roger Ailes. Gableman's video highlights an Asian prisoner going from prison garb to civilian clothes.Gableman's latest commercial:

Gableman TV ad: "Law Enforcement's Choice"

Bush revolving door ad.

Can anyone still argue this is not deliberate?