Sometimes you see things and can only slap your head in bewilderment at the thought process involved in arriving at an outcome.
This Sunday, Justice Louis Butler and Judge Michael Gableman are debating in Dodgeville. That, in and of itself, is not so ominous. The debate, however, is sponsored by the Iowa County Bar Association and Grassroots Citizens of Wisconsin.
On the Grassroots website, this event is listed right after the Feingold listening session in Barneveld, and just before a public forum to discuss Healthy Wisconsin and a reminder about the monthly peace vigil at the Iowa County Courthouse. This would be the same Grassroots group that some Capitol staffers begged RPW to take seriously back in 2006 before they plowed Steve Freese and Gabe Loeffelholz into the history books.
Of course, RPW largely ignored those concerns because nothing bad could ever happen to Republicans in an election. Republicans never lose. Which is why Freese runs a museum now and Loeffelholz is doing... well... whatever he's doing.
From a strategic standpoint, nothing good could possibly come from a nominally Republican judicial candidate participating in a debate organized by a group run by avowed progressives. Now, if Gableman is doing this out of an honest desire to engage in dialogue, even in potentially hostile environments, I suppose that's somewhat admirable - even if it's a terrible political decision.
But it's still a terrible political decision, something that Republican strategists in Wisconsin have become increasingly good at making in recent years.
This Sunday, Justice Louis Butler and Judge Michael Gableman are debating in Dodgeville. That, in and of itself, is not so ominous. The debate, however, is sponsored by the Iowa County Bar Association and Grassroots Citizens of Wisconsin.
On the Grassroots website, this event is listed right after the Feingold listening session in Barneveld, and just before a public forum to discuss Healthy Wisconsin and a reminder about the monthly peace vigil at the Iowa County Courthouse. This would be the same Grassroots group that some Capitol staffers begged RPW to take seriously back in 2006 before they plowed Steve Freese and Gabe Loeffelholz into the history books.
Of course, RPW largely ignored those concerns because nothing bad could ever happen to Republicans in an election. Republicans never lose. Which is why Freese runs a museum now and Loeffelholz is doing... well... whatever he's doing.
From a strategic standpoint, nothing good could possibly come from a nominally Republican judicial candidate participating in a debate organized by a group run by avowed progressives. Now, if Gableman is doing this out of an honest desire to engage in dialogue, even in potentially hostile environments, I suppose that's somewhat admirable - even if it's a terrible political decision.
But it's still a terrible political decision, something that Republican strategists in Wisconsin have become increasingly good at making in recent years.
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