Charlie Sykes, former Wisconsin radio host, on the primary for the open Wisconsin Supreme Court seat that happens this Tuesday:
But now we get to the strangest twist in this high-stakes story: After decades of ignoring or downplaying crucial judicial elections like this one, Democrats and their allies are very much focused on the Wisconsin contest.
Meanwhile, Wisconsin conservatives have chosen this moment to crack up.
While progressive dollars pour into the state, Republicans have launched a bitter, high-stakes, and often quite personal, civil war that seems designed to take out the candidate who may give them the best chance to hold onto control of the state’s high court.
The increasingly divisive campaign between the two conservatives — Dan Kelly and Jennifer Dorow — is not about ideology, or even much substance at all. Both are committed conservatives, on the right edges of the legal spectrum, and are even graduates of the same low-ranked law school.
But this has not stopped an increasingly vitriolic right-on-right slugfest.
And etc.
What’s going on? My favorite and belabored topic – apologies and that sort of thing – of course: the toxic culture of the GOP coming to the fore.
- The libertarian streak of justifying selfish behavior as being good for society (read a decade of REASON Magazine and that’s the strongest lesson coming out of your experience, I’ll just about guarantee it);
- A belief that compromise, much like taxation & regulation, is an evil practice, in this case applicable to the idea of voting for the Republican who you didn’t support, but who won the primary;
- The Gingrich motto, Win at all costs!, leads to a willingness to do or say anything to win even a primary, a tactic alienating independents and Republicans that still believe in civility, not civil wars.
This is reinforced by the induction of new GOP members who fit the above bill, who think politics is absolute war and not The Art Of The Possible, and that their arrogance means they’re right.
A war between the Republican candidates? This is not a surprise. And there’s no gerrymandering this race, as it’s state-wide. So long as the Democrats don’t strain the conservative leaning independent segment of the Wisconsin electorate with their nominee, I expect we’ll see the Democrats narrowly winning the Supreme Court seat in the general election this April. And this would lead to a 4-3 liberal dominance of the Court.
A liberal victory may result in another go at redistricting in the State, while a conservative victory seems likely to be status quo.
