The press has been unanimous in its denouncement of his campaign’s lies misleading speech, but more importantly, it has also made clear that Gableman’s overt disdain for basic constitutional rights makes him fundamentally unqualified to be a judge.

So what? Gableman has another ten years to serve the interests who put him on the Court. Yes, but voters will remember him during other judicial contests. I predict that future Supreme Court races will be compared to the Gableman-Butler race, and that the media and the electorate will pay greater attention to the sleaze that defined Gableman’s victory.

Journal-Sentinel ed board: “A lie is a lie is a lie.”

Appleton Post Crescent:  Court Campaign Bill doesn’t go far enough.

The irony in this past election is that while Gableman attacked Butler as an activist judge, it was Gableman’s judicial activism that won him the seat. Certainly calling state statues, the constitution, and court precedents loopholes is not the making of a strict constructionist.

No, Gableman is a conservative of a different breed. We could very rightly call him a “conservative activist judge” which on a drunken bar stool I am sure he would acknowledge. In many ways its the liberals who do not get it. Gableman and his WMC, and his Right to Life get the instrumental and political nature of the Supreme Court. He clearly understands he is there to protect corporations from government excess, and be there to make abortion a crime when the time comes. In the end precedence, state statues, and the constitution, are simply tools to an end.

Clearly we all understand this. If its the WMC board member, Right to Life zealot, liberal or conservative voter we all know irregardless of Gableman’s judicial philosophy why he is on the court. Liberals need to wake up from their “post ideological” fantasy land and make an instrumental case for a liberal Supreme Court justice.

Who or what will this liberal Supreme Court justice protect? Will it protect the rights of citizens from coercive government and corporate power? Will it protect unions as the democratic outlet in the economic sphere? Will it protect our civil liberties embedded in state and federal constitutions?

Liberals need to realize what conservatives have known for some time now, the Supreme Court is a firewall. I may want different things protected than the conservatives, but in the end I still want my firewall.

One certainly could go out of their way watching all the interviews, debates, third party ads, and in the end not vote. I certainly would agree third party ads increase “political interest”, but at the same time decreasing voter participation.

I watched the debate, like many others, and came away with Butler being the one who was best qualified to be on the court. I watched several of Butler’s ads from his website and was very impressed. Butler would be the determining factor that would get me to the polls on April 1, 2008.

In the end I did not vote yesterday. What changed since the debate and April 1st. Well I was blasted with negative ads, and it had an effect on me. What did me in was the ad from WEAC, which frankly I was ashamed of.

WEAC, of course was not alone, Xoff’s Greater Wisconsin Committee also had their share of shadowy ads. What these ads had in common was running Gableman style ads against Gableman himself. The ads focused on unverified and subtle ethic violations, and attacking Gableman for not being touch enough on criminals. When one invokes the “tough on crime” frame who do you think it benefits?

When I initially saw the liberal third party ads I thought they were directed against Butler. It was only later I realized they were on “his behalf”. This is the second election for Supreme Court in which liberal third party groups have cost the election. There is no doubt in my mind that if Butler was left to his own devices he would still have his seat on the Supreme Court.