February
2007
Ziegler advocates employ Swift Boaters PR firm
Dave Zweifel, Editor of the Capital Times, has discovered a connection linking those supporting Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice candidate Annette Ziegler with the PR firm who ran the “Swift Boaters for Truth” smear ads against former Presidential candidate John Kerry (D-Mass).
Here’s the gist of it: Zweifel received a call from PR flack Tim Scheiderer. Scheiderer offered to set up an off the record meeting with some guy named David W. Simon and Republican blogger and Attorney Rick Esenberg who teaches law at Marquette University. Then Scheiderer starts spouting off the GOP party line on liberal judges. In his column, Zweifel explains that Scheiderer is paid by Virginia PR firm Creative Response Concepts — the same firm who worked on the Swift Boaters smear campaign against Kerry. CRC also does work for the Republican Party, the Christian coalition and other right-wing groups.
So what does Ziegler have to say about all this? Well nothing so far but if what’s happening now is any indication of how this race will up, expect it to get very dirty.
Jim McGuigan
Jim McGuigan, Watchdogging Campaigns, Watchdogging the Judiciary
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In the Capital Times story he mentions something about the Federalist group. Isn’t that the same group that blogger and attorney Rick Esenberg claims on his blog site that he is doing work for? In addition, Rick Esenberg responded to a comment in his blog that he does not have any connection to the Ziegler campaign. However fuzzy they want to make it, it appears there is more to the story then they are telling us.
The Federalist Society is an extensive group of conservative lawyers (20,000 members, chapters in all the important law schools) who would, among other things, like to overturn the New Deal. Members include Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito, and on a more local level, Judge Diane Sykes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_Society
In my opinion, Judge Ziegler would not pass the confirmation hearing that Alito went through. I think she should come clean with the public or withdraw from the race.