What You Missed at the Supreme Court Debate

Maybe you think your life is in a rut. Stagnant. Dull. You think everybody else is having a better time.

Well, if you’re feeling that way, I’m here to make you feel better. You know what my life is like? I watched the Supreme Court debate last night. That’s what it has come to for me. Feel better now?

I’m one of approximately ten Wisconsinites with nothing better to do and who had the stamina to actually find the thing online. In Madison the debate wasn’t shown on television. You had to find it on the local ABC affiliate’s website. Also, in the middle of the debate, the live stream stopped streaming for about five minutes. While the stream stopped running I looked at my other options. I don’t know. “CSI – Fitchburg, ” “Chicago DPW,” “Real Housewives of Richland County.” Nothing seemed to grab me.

When the stream started running again it was heavily polluted. This debate was every bit as awful as you’d expect. Nonetheless, as a service to you, here are my observations.

Susan Crawford won on points. She was on the attack from the start and she landed stronger blows against Brad Schimel and parried better than he did.

Both Crawford and Schimel were sharper candidates than the last time when the lights were dimmer with Janet Protasiewicz and Dan Kelly on the stage.

Crawford hammered away at abortion at every opportunity. She repeated every Planned Parenthood talking point and slogan ever invented and then, somewhat implausibly, claimed that she would be unbiased on that issue. Still, she was probably a little more skillful than Protasiewicz had been a couple of years ago. Crawford stayed just shy of crossing the line.

For his part, Schimel buried his lede. His best argument on abortion is that it’s a nonissue because the Court will decide it before the new justice takes office in August. And, by the way, it’s curious that a case argued five months ago hasn’t been decided yet. He accused the liberal majority on the Court of stalling to keep the issue alive for the election. Of course that’s what they’re doing. But Schimel didn’t raise those arguments until deep into the night and he only brought it up once. He should have brought it up out of the gate and kept hammering away at it.

All seven sitting justices were in the audience, which I thought was unseemly and undignified. They weren’t there to better understand their new colleague, whichever one that turned out to be. They were there to cheer on their team. They should have stayed away.

Nobody scored a knockout blow and nobody changed anybody’s mind. For one thing that’s because nobody who was watching hadn’t already made up their mind. But for another thing, neither candidate outperformed the other by much or came off as a serious jurist who was above the fray. It was all fray. It was a fight between two attack dogs and I thought Crawford came out a little bit on top. The only question is if either candidate provided a sound bite for an attack ad.

I’ll still vote for Crawford for a reason you might find obscure. The reason is the role of the courts themselves. Schimel’s right. The Court will decide that abortion case soon after the election is behind them. But if Schimel wins, anti-abortion forces will find a way to get the issue back before the Court, he’ll vote the other way and the Court will have reversed itself within months. The Court’s role as an anchor of stability and a fair referee will have been completely destroyed, not that it hasn’t already been pretty well trashed to this point.

So, there you have it. There’s no reason to feel better about either candidate or the Court or the state of our politics. But at least you didn’t have to watch it.

YSDA stands for:

Free speech.

The rule of law.

Reason.

Tolerance.

Pluralism.