I am going to get in one last time on the Gableman triumph. Now that Michael Gableman has won, liberals are saying "the system is broken." But then, they always say that when they lose.
George W. Bush won every time they counted the votes in Florida 2000 -- hanging chads, dimpled chads, pregnant chads, Chad and Jeremy. Al Gore was never interested in counting all the votes. That is why he cherry picked only the most Democrat(ic) counties and tried to block the late-arriving ballots from military personnel serving overseas.
Then, of course, in 2004 it was Diebold voting machines "guaranteed to produce a Republican victory every time." (Where can I get me one of them there machines?)
In the Wisconsin court race, of course, they are blaming WMC. Boy, there must be a whole passel of them fat cat industrialists to swing a statewide election!
As if the Greater Wisconsin Committee and WEAC didn't go negative?
Louis Butler is a nice enough guy but face it, he lost 2-1 the first time he ran.
Here is the lesson: If the choice is between a former public defender and a former prosecutor, the former prosecutor wins.
Blowing the already generous caps off medical malpractice suits and allowing damage suits against companies whether or not they produced the product that inflicted the alleged damage does not seem reasonable to most people outside of Dane County.
Paul Soglin's pathetic effort to boycott products produced by WMC's board members will go nowhere. Boycott good Wisconsin products like Harley Davidson? Johnsonville brats? Ariens snow blowers? Paul, Paul, Paul! Too bad you don't have Halliburton and Blackwater to rail against instead of Marshfield Clinic and Webcrafters.
The other whine, being promoted by that scoundrel John Nichols, is that Wisconsin is a racist state. Honestly, kiddies, that's getting a little tiresome, isn't it? It is intellectually slothful. Makes one wonder how Barack Obama ever won the presidential primary here. The 45,000 who jammed Miller Park Sunday to get a Prince Fielder bobblehead doll could not all have been Democrats.
John Fund in the Wall Street Journal Saturday is definitive on the Wisconsin Supreme Court race.
I continue to support straight-up gubernatorial appointment subject to State Senate approval. Forget the merit selection business. Missouri's governor is fighting the system because the tort lobby got control of the Bar Association and keeps sending him candidates he will not support.
BTW: Mike Gableman gave the best speech I've heard in a long time Saturday, March 29, at the Second District GOP Caucus here in Madison. The pity is that he won't have to give any speeches for another 10 years.
BTW2: Darrin Schmitz, after helming Annette Ziegler, J.B. Van Hollen, and now the Gable Man, can raise his rates. I worked with Darrin in Tommy Thompson's press office for awhile. No harder worker.
It won't be too long before candidates emerge to take on Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson, who said this week that she'll seek another term.
"I know there are a fair amount of people within the law enforcement community who have the same concerns about the chief justice [Shirley Abrahamson] as they did with Louis Butler," Schmitz said.
WisPolitics has Darrin's story about the race.
Why we lost at the local level
The system is broken. No, just kidding!
Two names, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Democrats are so pumped up that they were willing to get involved in the supposedly non-partisan spring elections.
Dave Glomp delivers flowers as a part-time retirement job. So, the day before the election, he is called to deliver flowers to the iron workers at the Union Labor Temple on Park Street. Somehow, iron workers don't seem like flower people, but I digress, Shirley.
So, what should this hard-working county board candidate's wondrous eyes behold?
"A room full of tables and 50+ telephones from which calls were made to voters in all the Dane County races! ... I know I had no comparable assistance!"
Ah, the unions! Why is it that they so consistently vote against their own interests?
Back in 1996, I was seeking re-election to my second term. I was invited to appear before the South Central Federation of Labor. Moderates and conservatives were trying to build a new courthouse, badly needed. Mark Pocan and then-county executive Rick Phelps led the liberal opposition. Two weeks before the election, my opponent's yard signs -- and those of libs throughout Dane County -- sported new tags reading "No New Courthouse."
Big Labor Pains
Organized labor even did phone calls targeting supervisors like myself who were pro-courthouse. Of course, we eventually built the courthouse, but I chided the laborites the day of my appearance at the Labor Temple. I turned my back on the AFSCME crowd and faced the building trades unionists. Worked them like Jerry Lewis at a muscular dystrophy telethon.
"I'm trying to build a new courthouse to put you guys on the job so these guys" -- a gesture over my shoulder -- "can have a better place to work. Now what, gentlemen, is wrong with that?"
I can still remember the building tradesmen (for they were men) looking around me at the AFSCME people, palms held upward, as if to say, "What are we supposed to tell this guy?"
No wonder only 7 percent of the private sector workforce is unionized nationwide!
So, the libs won Tuesday at the County Board level. But what did they win, Don Pardo? Vicki McKenna says Brett Hulsey told her on the air election night that the libs would merge government services for better accountability. Hell, I did that with the city and county health departments. My motion, my sweat equity, my wordsmithing of the merger agreement.
One size fits all?
Matthew DeFour did a nice job in Sunday's Wisconsin State Journal in an article about ankle bracelets. Of course, the sheriff cherry picked the defendants Dufour would interview. Were there no conservatives on the Dane County Board available for interview? And what is motivating the whole "electronic monitoring" gig? Not public protection -- budget. Kathleen gets to balance her budget on the backs of the sheriff's department (cut by $1.2 million) for more "extra curriculars," as the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance calls spending for park land.
Dane County has to be the only county in Wisconsin where the judges are more law and order than the sheriff.
David Mahoney will learn soon enough who his real friends are. It ain't Kathleen Falk. The Kathleen. The queen!
Comings and goings
Mike Verveer: I am hearing the downtown alder will not seek re-election in next spring's elections.
Eric West: The energetic chairman of the Dane County Republican Party, is leaving Madison Thursday for a job in Jacksonville, Florida, where he will be the general sales manager for WAPE-FM. Eric, who was in the same line of work at WIBA in Madison, is excited that Jacksonville voted 62% for Bush in 2004.
Coming tomorrow -- more on Madison's downtown vagrancy crisis. Much more.
