Paul Soglin: Waxing America

Charles Pierce on Obama in Wisconsin

"The Cynic and Senator Obama" - Struggling to find a reason to believe, Charles Pierce channels Norman Mailer and Hunter Thompson in Esquire as he follows Obama campaigning through the worst winter Wisconsin has seen in a hundred years. Calling himself "the cynic," Pierce sees Obama as ignoring the fundamental ways we have sold out:

The cynic will admit that it’s all great politics. Tell America that it is a great country that simply has lost its way for a spell. Tell the American people that they are a great people who are better than those hucksters who come to divide us. It has a marvelous anesthetic appeal. Swirl down through the clouds of memory and forget that the country allowed itself to follow George Bush over the cliff not merely because it was shocked by the attacks of September 11, 2001, but because it was too pissing-down-the-shoes scared to do anything else. Forget about how eagerly the American people cheered the brutish and the nasty, how simple it was to sell raw animal vengeance dressed up as geopolitical wisdom, and how dumbly everyone followed until well after it was revealed that the people selling it didn’t know enough about the world to throw to a cat. This was the era of complicity. Can Obama end it, thought the cynic, without admitting it ever existed?

...We are not an honest and decent people in our politics, in the way we deal with one another as a political commonwealth. We will trade away our most precious rights in exchange for a bag of magic charms, and even when we find out that these include the black prison, the waterboard, and the secret microphone, we’ll think we got the better of the deal. We’ll swap our obligation to intelligent self-government for any huckster’s trick that makes us laugh or keeps us entertained in our cars for the evening drive-time shift. We hold this truth to be self-evident -- that all men are out to get what’s ours.

There's lots of this sort of reflection.  The writing snaps like a live power line downed by lightning.  Read it for yourself.

Here's one more taste:

The cynic decides that politics is better on the radio, the same way baseball is, where you have to construct the scene in your own head. Radio is for dreamers. Television is for hucksters, and it has leached from American politics all of its creative imagination.

-Barry Orton

More on Colorado As Budget Role Model For UW

For several years, Republican leadership in the Wisconsin legislature led by Assembly Speaker Michael Huebsch (R-West Salem) and architect of the attack on the University of Wisconsin, Stephen Nass (R-Whitewater), used Colorado as a role model. When they wanted to drive Wisconsin into economic ruin by adopting TABOR, they used Colorado's adoption of deadly spending restraints as their example of horrible fiscal management.

Now we get word from Denver that, Regents hike CU-Boulder tuition 9.3%

The decision for undergrad residents comes atop a 14.6 percent hike last year. A lack of state funds is cited:

University of Colorado Regents approved the tuition hike Tuesday, saying they had no choice but to raise the price instead of cutting programs. "None of us likes to increase tuition," Regent Paul Schauer said. "But in light of the situation we are in now, we are not left with too many options."  Last year, tuition increased 14.6 percent....

...University of Colorado Regents approved the tuition hike Tuesday, saying they had no choice but to raise the price instead of cutting programs...

... Evan Dreyer, spokesman for Gov. Bill Ritter, said the state and the university need to do more to increase higher-education funding.

None of this is new to UW students. As we noted last week, Republican Party Winning Battle To Destroy University of Wisconsin System.

Wisconsinites have two options.  The first is send a clear unequivocal message to the leadership in the state legislature that we understand the value of education and want the UW System properly funded. The other option is to hope that other states outperform us in the race to the bottom.

Who Needs Ralph Nader When The Democrats Have the Clintons

It was difficult last January arriving at a decision to endorse Barack Obama. Despite my reservations about endorsing Hillary Clinton, I did not dismiss her lightly.

As we sat around the Passover dinner, brother-in-law Dan commented, "The Democrats don't need Ralph Nader when they have Hillary Clinton."

He is right.

Today I have no regrets about my endorsement of Obama, and I am more convinced than ever that I made the right decision. If Hillary Clinton gets the nomination, I will support her and the Democratic ticket unequivocally.

The problem is that her quest for the nomination has come at considerable expense to all Democrats.  There is much to be said in support of a spirited primary contest. It can invigorate the party, it can make the nominee stronger in the end. However, a primary such as the one waged by Hillary Clinton can also be destructive for all involved, and that is the case this year.

The damage inflicted on the Democratic Party, not just Barack Obama, by the Clinton strategy to obtain the nomination at all costs is as disruptive as a Ralph Nader third-party effort.

Clinton has every right to run; she has every right to use whatever strategy she chooses. That entitles her to receive criticisms from people like me who are disillusioned with her performance, depressed about the once bright prospects for the Democrats in November, and unforgiving even if Obama wins the nomination and prevails in November.

Wedge Issues for the Legislature Start Smoking

Last January I suggested that while "I am not much of a 'wedge issue' guy, (but) the proposed statewide ban on smoking in public places is the way to go."

Now some new polling suggests that Democrats can use the issue next fall in an effort to retain control of the State Senate and to add control of the Assembly. From The Capital Times: Smoking bans pick up steam in latest poll

Wisconsin residents show an increased support for smoking bans, according to a poll released today.

The poll showed 69 percent of respondents favor legislation prohibiting smoking in indoor public spaces, workplaces, bars and restaurants...

That is an increase of 5% since the last poll conducted in 2007. What is really nifty is that even smokers are joining in support of a ban with with 49% opposing smoking bans, a drop from 64%.

The politicians who refuse to endorse an effective smoking ban might heed another warning. A full sixty percent of the voters  "were more likely to support a candidate who advocates acting now for smoke-free laws."

Democrats can really smoke the Republicans in the fall election. They can get control of both houses  and enact a state-wide smoking ban. A real two-fer.

Ready To Drop the Supreme Court Race. Not

I was looking for a new topic, something fresh, to start the first full week of April figuring we had enough of the Gableman train wreck when I came across the Wall Street opinion pieces by John Fund, Wisconsin's Judicial Revolution:

On Tuesday, for the first time in over four decades, Wisconsin voters turned out an incumbent justice of their state supreme court. The election showed that, given a clear choice, voters usually prefer a judicial conservative to one with an activist bent...

...Wisconsin is in many ways a liberal state – it hasn't voted Republican at the presidential level in decades – but its electorate showed this week that it favors judicial restraint over activism...

Gableman got more votes than Louis Butler, but the shallow nature of this analysis in no way reflects the dynamic.  Candidates lose and win elections for a variety of reasons, some much more important than others.

There are a block of voters, perhaps 25-30% who will tell you they voted for Gableman because he was not a judicial activist. There are probably a similar number of voters who voted for Butler because he was perceived as a fair and judicious Justice.

The battle ground was for the center and they voted in slightly larger numbers for Gableman than Butler for many small reasons and a couple of significant reasons.  Those significant reasons are the heinous Wisconsin Manufacturing & Commerce's negative ads that lead many voters to believe than Butler worked to free a rapist in his capacity as a judge, not as a public defender, and similar ads that even Michael Gableman refused to embrace or condone.

As for the the lead about Butler being the first incumbent in over forty years to fail in a reelection bid, the nature of the WMC-inspired character assassination against Justice Butler was a flood of such giant proportions that no incumbent could have survived such a shellacking.

There is an obvious motive for John Fund, the United States Chamber of Commerce, The Institute for Legal Reform (the front group that raises the money from Wal-Mart, Nestle, Home Depot, etc) to continue to put out the disinformation about the election dynamics. As fund notes, there will be similar races in the coming years from Michigan to the deep South. This internationally linked cabal has a winning formula for success and they do not want it disrupted.

They have no interest in our figuring out how to beat the 'Wizards' behind the curtain buying these Supreme Court seats.

Which brings up some interesting questions:

• Did John Fund, a member of the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal contribute to any of the Wisconsin front organizations?
• Did the Wall Street Journal make such contributions through any of the front organizations in Wisconsin,. New York,  Washington D.C., etc?
• Did Fund assist in raising any money to influence the Wisconsin Gableman campaign?

Waxing America's Wisconsin Readership Losing It

Readers of Waxing America, at least a certain element, are starting to lose it. Comments about the Supreme Court race, which are opened and uncensored, except for personal attacks and slime, reveal that we have attracted some right-wingers who are prone to weak thinking.

It started the day after the election.  My analysis of the election and the effort to learn from it brought this response:

• Losers make excuses. Winners get the job done.

Obviously the Right does not like it when the Left learns from its defeats and tries to improve in anticipation of the next election.

The suggestion that Butler could win under the right circumstances (and we do have two Democratic Senators and a Democratic Governor) elicited this rebuttal:

• ...vast bulk of Wisconsin is a conservative state. To see a conservative elected shouldn't surprise anyone who looks at the big picture. ..and
• ...What this should be conveying to you Paul, is that the state is slowly tipping more right than left.

Many, including the conservative Wisconsin State Journal, not just those on the left, are considering appointed judges as a better route to a qualified judiciary. I observed that if Butler got steamrolled that was an option, but I was withholding judgment. My own preference is simple disclosure as to where the issue committees get their money:

• Have you noticed...when a democrat loses an election...the process was corrupt, the campaign was nasty, and feelings were hurt!!!!!
  When a democrat wins, then the process doesn't need to be "fixed"????

• Of course Pauly,* you and your ilk (lefty stooges) will want to take the vote away from Wisconsin citizens. This is where We The People are allowed to judge the judges.

Some of the harshest judgments were attributions to things never said:

• You liberals just can not accept defeat, can you? If liberals win, all we hear about is "a new day" and "the voters have spoken" and that it's "time to move on". But if conservatives wins, it's evil, nasty, racist, sexist, white men cracking their whips again and more government reform is needed to clean up the evil, nasty, racist, sexist system...

But my favorite was this bon mot from someone claiming to be Fraley:

You don't like the outcome of a contest and want to avoid losing again...change the rules! Nice motto. So which is it, Paul?  Wisconsin voters are: 1) Racist 2) Stupid 3) Not worthy of the honor of selecting judges

Those are the only three options the whine brigade has before them. Until you settle on one option, I guess we can just assume you think it's all three?

This Fraley, borrowing from the worst of the Communists, under the guise of freedom, allows the accused of making choices, choices from his limited world view.

• Wisconsin voters are not racist, but the advertisements taken out by the Gableman fellow travelers were.
• Wisconsin voters are not stupid, just witness the election of our United States Senators and Governor, and the fact that next fall, both houses of the State Legislature will be Democratic.
• And certainly Fraley is not accusing the Wisconsin State Journal, most of the other dailies in the State and many prominent Republicans of not trusting the voters, when they called for the appointment of judges long before the outcome of Tuesday's election was known. Or is he?

Update Sunday, April 6, 2008.  Not knowing when to quit, Jim Widgerson jumper into the fray, Paul Soglin embracing another Wisconsin tradition McCarthyism.

Wrong.  Fellows, McCarthyism is accusing someone of being a Communist without any evidence and not allowing the accused to confront the accuser.

a mid-20th century political attitude characterized chiefly by opposition to elements held to be subversive and by the use of tactics involving personal attacks on individuals by means of widely publicized indiscriminate allegations especially on the basis of unsubstantiated charges;

What you guys are searching for is 'red-baiting.'  That is where you focus on guilt by association.  For example, if Barack Obama attends a specific church, you suggest that he supports all of the positions held by the leader of the church.

Or, for example, if extreme terrorists elements want the US out of Iraq, then any American who wants the United States out of Iraq has to be at best a terrorist sympathizer and at worst, a terrorist.

Now where have we heard that?

*I believe the correct spelling is P-a-u-l-i-e

Mr. Gableman: It Is Not Over Until We Say It Is Over

During the campaign against Louis Butler, Michael Gableman cavalierly handled the question of his cronies running deceptive, misleading and lying campaign advertisements. He continued to display nothing but contempt for the democratic process during Wednesday's post mortems.

Answering questions from the AP, as reported in the Wisconsin Law Journal, Butler Defeated in Election, Gableman said, "The fact is the ad is behind us."

As an attorney, Mr. Gableman knows that is not a fact.

• Every party who argues a case before Mr. Gableman has to worry about the size of the donation the adverse party made to the one of the shadowy groups that ran the TV ads.
• Mr. Gableman has to wonder in all such cases if he should disclose the nature of the support or the names of the donors.
• For years Wisconsin will focus on these ads as they gave momentum to the efforts to:
  • end the election of Supreme Court justices
  • or change the financing of such elections by requiring disclosure form the issue ad committees (my choice)
  • or changing the election of justices so that the only money that can enter a race is regulated public money.

The fact that this campaign received far more attention than last years Ziegler-Clifford campaign but resulted in a lower voter turn out demonstrates the power of negative smear ads in suppressing the vote.

As Edward B. Foley, Director of Election Law, Moritz College of Law noted:

Voters can be prevented from potentially voting for the other candidate (1) by direct threats of intimidation, (2) by suppressing turnout through disinformation and scare tactics, and finally, (3) by efforts to keep the other candidate's message from being communicated. (emphasis added)...

While voter suppression in its most drastic form involves physical threat and intimidation, it can be more subtle as were the messages laced through the WMC and other issue ads which was design to portray Justice Louis Butler as less than the honorable person that he is.

Why We Won - The Meaning of the Supreme Court Race

While Michael Gableman was elected to the Supreme Court, the long term implications of the race make it clear that the dynamic of Wisconsin politics is changing for the better.

The close outcome, with a suppressed vote, demonstrated that the influence of Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC) and their right wing companions, the Club for Growth Wisconsin and the Coalition for America's Families no longer have a magic bullet that guarantees they can win elections.

In addition to a number of legislative seats they own, this is the third statewide office purchased by these groups in the last two years. But the trend is moving against them.  When they defeated Kathleen Falk in the November, 2006 Attorney General race, progressive forces in this state did not have a plan to deal with the influence of the right wing issues committees. 

While Falk had name recognition, which the defeated Supreme Court candidates Linda Clifford and Justice Louis Butler lacked, her election campaign was left to fend for itself against the massive amounts of cash spent by the WMC Issues Committee.

In April of 2007, Linda Clifford, who was defamed and defeated by now tainted Justice Annette Ziegler, not only lacked Falk's name recognition but also suffered from the lack of a strategy to fend off WMC and its partners.

Louis Butler, sitting on the Supreme Court, was not in a much more advantageous position than Clifford.  Early polling indicated that his name recognition was no better than Gableman's so that he had none of the advantages associated with incumbency.

But the Butler campaign, despite lacking the name recognition of Falk, did have an advantage over the the Falk and Clifford campaigns in that a statewide wide group of bloggers, political activists, and progressive leaders were beginning to peel back the onion that is WMC.

Justice Butler, an honorable and decent man, was not re-elected, but the closeness of his race demonstrates things are changing for the better.

As Wisconsin heads into the fall elections, there are important trends and factors to consider:

• WMC, despite the three victories, has paid a price for its swagger. The internal problems involving disgruntled members is growing and worsening by the day. The Gableman victory will please the smug Right but it only creates more problems for the moderate Republicans and Democrats within the organization.
• While WMC's Jimmy Buchen spins things by pointing out that his organization was outspent by the Greater Wisconsin Committee, he knows full well that the collective spending of his organization as part of the right wing cabal crushed the pro-Butler forces. This is important to recognize for two reasons:
  • First, it means that if the overall financial playing field is leveled, progressives will be elected.
  • Secondly, it is a reminder that while we can stop some of the Wisconsin corporate money going into the WMC Issues Committee, the cabal will turn to other right wing groups who will raise the money outside of Wisconsin.
• Moderate Republicans are estranged from WMC and the leadership of the Republicans in the Wisconsin Assembly. An examination of public supporters of Butler and Gableman indicates that while the incumbent received individual endorsements from the 'usual suspects,' Gableman received few personal endorsements from moderate Republican leaders thats used to line up behind Governor Tommy Thompson.
• The newspapers of this Wisconsin have had enough. An examination of the fifteen largest dailies in this state demonstrates that only one, the Beloit Daily News, endorsed Gableman. More importantly, virtually every newspaper in the state condemned WMC for its and Gableman's advertisements. (The Janesville Press Gazette, owned by a WMC board member, endorsed Justice Butler.)

As we enter the fall elections, hopefully every legislative candidate will be asked their position on legislation to expose the source of the money used to fund "issue" advertisements. Legislation is needed that will require:

• the identity of every individual donor with a business or personal address outside of Wisconsin.
• prohibit the bundling of money by out-of-state organizations. This means that money from a shadow front like the Institute for Legal Reform could not accept hundred of thousand of dollars from individual and corporations, bundle the money and report it as their own.

The wonderful thing about this country is the right of Americans to speak their minds freely. That right does not come with a promise that when using other people's money, it can be done anonymously. WMC has its right to free speech. The public has the right  to know who is speaking.

Come gather round people wherever you roam
And admit that the waters around you have grown
And accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth saving
Then you'd better start swimming or you'll sink like a stone
For the times, they are a changing

-Bob Dylan

Update:  I want to thank a staff member of the Janesville Gazette for noting that I got the name of the newspspaer wrong. Thank you.

Why I Am Voting Today for Michael Gableman

Reasons to vote for Michael Gableman for Supreme Court Justice:

• It will discourage young attorneys from taking up a career representing criminal defendants, especially the indigent.
• Even if young attorneys do practice criminal defense, it will discourage them from representing black defendants.
• If the young attorneys still insist upon being criminal attorneys, it will discourage the attorneys from being black.
• It would be nice to have a little humor on the bench as Gableman says  with a straight face, "I am neither a partisan ideologue nor politician."
• Move over Johnny Depp. It will stimulate the Wisconsin economy as millions of new dollars are poured into future campaigns by Wal-Mart, pharmaceutical companies, and rabid right-wingers.
• There will be no troublesome hearings with DNA evidence that embarrasses prosecutors when it is demonstrated that the crime was committed by someone other that the defendant who was imprisoned twenty years ago.
• Unlike mere mortals, Gableman knows there is no need for a trial. After all, if the defendant was innocent, he never would have been charged.

WMC Must Take Responsibility for Their Paid Advertisements

An open letter to the attorneys on the Board of Directors and the staff of the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce:

Many of us are deeply troubled by the advertisement paid for by your organization mischaracterizing the legal career of Justice Louis Butler. As you know, the Original WMC Watch program focused on the your board and staff taking responsibility for the placement and the content of these television and radio advertisements.

Now the Judicial Watch Campaign (JWC) comes to several conclusion about your ad entitled "Loophole Louie" including the following:

• WMC "falsely characterizes the court's (Wisconsin Supreme Court) ruling in this case, labeling as a "loophole" a lengthy decision based on the fact that the police in this case intentionally violated a fundamental Constitutional right guaranteed to all citizens..."
• WMC's use of the epithet "Loophole Louie..." is demeaning to the entire Wisconsin Supreme Court and our judicial system.

JWC concludes by citing Supreme Court Rule 20.8.4. This rule for attorneys, among other things, notes that:

It is professional misconduct for a lawyer to...

(c) engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation...

(g) violate the attorney's oath...

The attorney's oath states:

...I will maintain the respect due to courts of justice and judicial officers...

My personal opinion is that the conduct of the Gableman campaign, aided and abetted by WMC and other issue committees, has done more to diminish the stature of the Wisconsin judiciary and the Wisconsin Bar than any collection of offenses committed by attorneys or judges in the past fifty years.