December
2006
Supreme Court Race has Odd Twist
It hasn't been on almost anyones radar yet but the race for the Wisconsin Supreme Court took an odd twist recently.
Annette Ziegler will face Linda Clifford this spring.
The twist? Ziegler's website features her standing in front of the Ozaukee, Waukesha and Milwaukee Justice center.
The problem?
It's all the same place. Someone just digitally edited the names of the centers to reflect the county Ziegler was supposedly standing in front of.
It's amusing but hopefully she won't take anymore shortcuts this campaign season. She could very well be a great person for the job (or might not). We'll reserve our judgment for a while. For the time being, she needs to have a stern talking to with her campaign people.
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Link: Folkbum snagged the pictures off of the website. We're sure that Ziegler will take them down. Credit Carrie Lynch from What's Left for breaking the story.
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Jim McGuigan
Jim McGuigan, Watchdogging Campaigns, Watchdogging the Judiciary
Jeez, is it election season already? And in the blogosphere, we’re back to nitpicking on important issues of the day. On What’s Left, a brimming debate over whether the Ziegler campaign good photoshopping or bad photoshopping.
Ziegler’s actually a conservative Washington County judge, appointed by Tommy Thompson back in the 1990′s.
Clifford’s a Madison lawyer with plenty of dough in her campaign coffers whose name has been floated as a high court candidate for years. She’s the Doyle candidate, although he passed her over when he appointed Louis Butler to the court.
While the Ziegler campaign plays around with photoshop, the Clifford campaign is loading up people’s email boxes with press releases about getting endorsements from the likes of former Gov. Tony Earl.
Clifford ought to have a talk with her campaign people, too.
Whoa Nelly… that high horse is gonna buck ya.
A candidate for Justice that is misleading the public into thinking she\’s been in multiple places isn\’t a problem? She\’s trying to say she\’s got some wide support and the photos may as well say, \”look at me, I understand the needs of ALL of these communities\”.
Watchdog Milwaukee isn\’t going to go dark until the spring cycle. Politics never ends.
BTW, why does it bother you that Clifford is collecting endorsements this early. It\’s the spring political season and anyone who doesn\’t recognize it is naive.
Here\’s an update. Those pictures have been removed. Now she only has one picture from southeastern Wisconsin and that\’s the Washington County picture. She appears to be blowing off the rest of southeastern Wisconsin which may lead credence to your argument that she\’s just working the GOP base.
Ziegler, a judicial conservative, is working the GOP base, and has built her campaign on the “experience counts” message that was successful for JB Van Hollen. If Clifford buys into it, as Kathleen Falk did against Van Hollen, it’s all over. The WMC already thinks this Wisconsin court is anti-business and will help Ziegler with attacks against Clifford, an environmental lawyer, as they attacked Falk.
The endorsements are fine … first one with the most cops and prosecutors wins. But Tony Earl?
I just checked their websites. I can’t find anyone who says that Tony Earl supports them.
Clifford boasts that her campaign co-chairs are Governor Patrick J. Lucey (D) and Governor Lee Sherman Dreyfus (R).
Ziegler has former US Attorney Tom Schneider who was a Clinton appointee.
This is one of those races where partisans will want to line up behind one candidate or another but I get the feeling that both would be pretty independent. It may sound odd coming from my mouth, but I’m a fan of what Dreyfus has said after leaving office. I was lucky enough to share a podium with the Governor back in 2001. His brother is a bit of a nut but the guy in the red vest seems to have it together.