I had thought that the liberals (Democrats) were facing a stiffer challenge this time in winning an open state Supreme Court seat. One reason was that abortion may have lost some of its saliency now that the procedure is available again in Wisconsin. That’s still true. But the other reason was that I thought the conservative (Republican) candidate, Brad Schimel, would be a better candidate than Dan Kelly was last time.
It’s starting to look like I might have been wrong about Schimel. The other day Schimel said that he agreed with the convicted felon Donald Trump’s pardons of 1,500 January 6th rioters and insurrectionists. Then he got back to his campaign office and his manager, said something like, “You said, what?! What the hell, Brad!”
So, the campaign issued a statement saying that Schimel didn’t mean what he said. He meant to say that he disagreed with pardoning those who had attacked police officers.
Really? So, if all you did was bust into the Capitol, chase cops around, participate in a mob that created the scene where cops could be attacked and did all that with the intention of stealing a fair and free election, well, that’s okay, you should get a pardon? Is that what Schimel meant?
Schimel will, no doubt, run ads showing him with cops while a stern voice — or better yet, a frightened woman’s voice — says how much he hates crime and criminals and how he’ll be the hangin’ judge as soon as his ass hits the bench and he’ll be protecting us from all those horrible predators out there. Well, yes, unless you’re part of a riot that damaged our democracy’s most sacred building and you tried to take over the government. In that case, hey, let’s let bygones be bygones.
Will this kind of stupid comment matter? It could. The April electorate is not going to be like the folks who showed up in November. All those guys playing video games in their parents’ basements are not going to put down the joystick to vote in a state court race. If Trump’s not on the ballot they won’t be off the couch.
But Democrats will be fired up to do SOMETHING to counter Trump and nothing will feel better than voting for Susan Crawford. Meanwhile, independents and old style Republicans will show up too and many of them actually care if a judge cares about democracy and the law.
Please, Brad, just keep talking, man.
YSDA stands for:
Free speech.
The rule of law.
Reason.
Tolerance.
Pluralism.
Yellow Stripes & Dead Armadillos 
Dems should be a heavy favorite in this one. Now that they have become the party of the college educated, they have a persistent advantage in non-presidential elections that Republicans used to enjoy. Plus, even if opposition to Trump feels much more subdued than eight years ago, it’s certainly a powerful political force. Just look at the special election in Iowa last night, where the Dems flipped a state senate seat that Trump won by 20 pts.
LikeLike
Yes. I think the energy in the backlash against Trump alone will be enough to carry Crawford. Then you add the abortion issue, while that may be somewhat less powerful than it was last time. Plus, Trump voters show up only for Trump And it appears that Schimel won’t be as a good a candidate as I thought. If I had to predict, I don’t think it’ll be an 11 point margin like it was last time, but I’d say maybe six? Still a landslide by recent standards.
LikeLike
I saw a Brad Schimel ad while I watched Jeopardy! yesterday and noted that he looked pretty intimidating as he walked toward the camera with some beefy, stern-faced, white, no-nonsense cops. Law and Order. That was the message I received.
Crawford will hit him, repeatedly, on abortion and his decision, as AG, to not sign on to a major opioid lawsuit, probably because Big Pharma was a major Schimel donor.
I have zero faith in Wisconsin’s electorate and think that Schimel has, at worst, a 50/50 shot to flip the court. The one thing I’m sure of is that it’s going to get nasty and that I’ll mute the tube while getting my daily fix of Ken Jennings, Johnny Gilbert and Co.
LikeLike
Good time to ask: What would convicted felon Nelson Mandela do?
LikeLike
Right. Because Donald Trump is America’s Nelson Mandela. Good time to ask: what are you smoking, man?
LikeLike
Nice rebuttal full of logic.
No lawfare here, nothing to see, move along.
LikeLike
But seriously, we’re pretty much screwed if we’re electing our judges. They are forced to become politicians. And once a politician, always a politician (dig intentional).
His opponent seems to have already mastered that by saying she’ll “do the right thing”. Gee thanks for telling us nothing.
FWIW I voted for JP because Kelly really was an awful candidate and we needed a resolution on the abortion issue.
The current candidates are less than ideal. How do we get someone who is a flexible thinker like Hagedorn?
LikeLike
As you’ve expressed sentiment to understand views different than the Democratic narrative Dave, I will offer a comment.
What actually happened on 1/6/2021 is not clear. It wasn’t an insurrection. 1500 people armed with cellphones aren’t going to steal a ‘free and fair’ election, in quotes because it was about as free and fair as the covid vaccine was safe and effective. Please note the similarity in the highly effective PR-generated adjectives.
40 or 50 people should not be pardoned for their acts of violence. Everyone else should be.
It is possible that the new administration will be able to get a more realistic picture of what actually happened out to the public. The sterilized and manicured version that was released by the J6 is filled with misrepresentations (the nice word for lies) and distortions.
Your conclusion that Schimel’s statement is evidence of his not caring about the rule of law or democracy is simplistic, but likely representative of many Ds in WI.
I will always hope against hope that we can have meaningful discussions of substance. Until then…
LikeLike
A couple more cans of bear spray and we would have lost our Democracy!
Any effort to characterize 1500 people as this or that is foolhardy. Look at our own George Floyd riot. Off the top of my head you had:
As that went, so it was with the 1/6 mob. The worst of them deserved jail time. I’d question the sentences some of them received. Did they all deserve pardons? No.
But I still think the bigger threat is the malicious prosecution of the US DOJ who was bound and determined to make examples of anyone involved.
LikeLike
Those who don’t believe in White privilege would be well-served to consider this type assessment of Jan 6th. If BLM protestors did the exact same thing, the narrative would be extremely different. Now, perhaps Thom Payne would be a consistent thinker and advocate for the same treatment of these fictional BLM protesters, but that’s hard to believe for the bulk of the right-wing propaganda establishment.
But the Ds!!! To get ahead of this inevitable refrain, it’s irrelevant what Ds would advocate. Perhaps they are also inconsistent. If they’d jump off a bridge, should you too?
As an aside: with so much decidedly non-centrist activity coming out of the White House, it’s interesting to see no commentary in this blog. Not to say it’s true here, but I’m amazed at how thoroughly most media has become extremely deferential to the new administration, to the point of butt kissing. Often, even within what might be a critique, there are typically very complementary adjectives being used to describe the administration. Liberal media – yeah, right!
LikeLike
Rollie – see One Eye’s comment about the Floyd riots. That’s just a local example.
If you’re violent, the consequences of your actions should put you in jail. I don’t give a crap what your predilections are.
Jaren – let’s wait to see if RFK Jr makes it through the gauntlet. If he does, and if Drs. Bhattacharya and Makary make it to their posts, more of the story will emerge. Mainstream news sources, like the one you cite, are going to fade away, or their people hopefully get arraigned for being complicit in one of the biggest coverups in our history. The story about the effects of hastily produced, poorly checked, PR-amplified mRNA vaccines is at its very earliest stages. Here’s a hint from a mainstream news source:
https://www.thecentersquare.com/indiana/indiana-life-insurance-ceo-says-deaths-are-up-40-among-people-ages-18-64/article_71473b12-6b1e-11ec-8641-5b2c06725e2c.html
Gleason – you watched in on TV?
LikeLike
Thom, you seem to have strong feelings about which media is and is not to be trusted. Beware that your own bias may be playing a role here – you’re a human I assume, so you also like to have your pre-conceived ideas “confirmed”.
We’re at a time in history that mirrors past technological turning points in communications. It’s interesting to think about the explosion of newspapers s long time ago, and how much they aimed to shift public opinion rather than neutrally inform. Then the so-called mainstream media emerged to counter that, especially influenced by the scarcity of the airwaves and the regulatory environment that emerged because of that scarcity. Were those outlets somewhat biased? Yes, they’re run by humans and funded by businesses. But so are the outlets you trust.
LikeLike
Rollie – In 2025, we the people, can directly support those who are actually trying to report the news, not try to pass off opinion, if not outright fabrication, as news. Substack for example. We are not reliant on businesses and their biases.
PS – I read and engage with those I disagree with. Hence my presence here.
LikeLike
And those people write what they think people will pay to hear. People are more likely to pay to have their biases massaged than challenged. These “journalists” certainly don’t want to take on shifts at Walmart to pay their bills, they’d much prefer for their substack to do it. And if you think they wouldn’t entertain any chance at extra bucks via advertising, I have a bridge to sell you.
LikeLike
“it was about as free and fair as the covid vaccine was safe and effective.” So in other words, very free and fair?
Remember when anti-vaxxers were claiming people who took the vax would be dropping dead like flies within three years? So much for that. Meanwhile, lower-vaccinations rates were strongly linked to higher death rates from COVID: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/united-states-rates-of-covid-19-deaths-by-vaccination-status
LikeLike
“What actually happened on 1/6/2021 is not clear.” Oh please, I watched it live on TV and re-watched the endless highlights of hand-to-hand combat against the police and members of Congress of both parties running to escape an angry mob. Next you’ll tell me that Jeffrey Dahmer was framed.
LikeLike
Gleason – my apologies for my snarky comment.
If you want me to engage with you, I will need more than a TV report. TV reporting is unavoidably biased.
LikeLike