A few days before an enormously important Supreme Court race in Wisconsin, both Democrats and Republicans are, perhaps unsurprisingly, projecting equal confidence that their candidate of choice will win.
I wonder how the Trump indictment (and the ones to come), the role of the courts in all those matters and GOP rhetoric aimed at the courts, will affect people’s decisions (and turnout, for that matter).
Stuff like this, for example–
“The left is pulling out all the stops, all kinds of outside money,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) told TPM as he jogged through the Capitol basement. “They don’t really respect democracy, they just want to rule by judicial fiat.”
–would certainly weigh on my mind with that national context dominating the news.
Super Sleaze Repukelickens
There is a reason they run their most explosive slime-bombs at the very end of a campaign. Saving your powder and going the hardest right up to the finish line has paid dividends before…and it is the best time to go hard if you have to pick your battles. But the main reason is because nobody has time to litigate or use legal or commercial pressure to stop your ads even when they are blatant and flagrant lies. Also, once the election is past the likelihood of people coming after you goes way down.
Most of Kelly’s ads and tactics have been egregious, but this latest ad totally lies about this case and Kelly ran with the ad after asking for victim’s permission. She said no. And Protasiewicz had done what the victim asked during the case. The victim asked for a certain kind of sentencing that offered light at the end of the tunnel for the perp. The ad says the opposite.
Excerpt:
…the victim at the center of the case who said she had refused to participate in the ads and called them traumatizing and inaccurate.
“It immediately took my breath away,” the woman told the Journal Sentinel after seeing the ads for the first time. “To see it in action. I wondered if there was any thought put into the human beings behind the cases. I am a human being who wants peace.”
But - but - but wait!!! High school dropout BoBo declared the US is NOT a democracy, so RoJo should be pleased that Democrats “don’t really respect democracy,” right?
Van Orden, meanwhile, seems to be trying to reverse some damage done by Trump, who used early and absentee voting as an entry point to sow doubt about the trustworthiness of the 2020 election. Many Republican voters soured on the voting methods as a result, sending some Republican officials rushing to assure their supporters that it’s safe
Kelly and his Republican backers have attacked Protasiewicz for her candor. And “My concern is that Janet has already made public how she would be voting on things,”
Considering the roles Judges have on the lives of voters why shouldnt those voters understand where a judge stand on paticular issues relivent to them. The Republican’s being pissy on this is only because they understand they majority of voters are tierd of Republican’s big Governmentint intrusions into private family planning decisions.
The same PACs (Wisconsin Manufacturers, I believe) have done this two Judicial elections in a row.
Last time they revealed the identities of child victims, now going after rape victims. In regular politician campaigns, outing rape victims isn’t part of the usual process. But Ron Johnson’s ads against Mandela Barnes were on the margins of that, going full-out crime-scaring and ads full of gory details and how, somehow, it was Barnes’ fault and not the guy who WAS THE SITTING SENATOR the last 12 years.
But these judicial races, which are supposed to have different rules and even stricter controls (which the WI R Lege obliterated, natch) see criminal cases as the fodder and work-product they can attack. And using rape victims as pawns and re-victimizing children is de rigueur.
Her one word answer would be “no”. Her only value to Kelly is to further his political career.
And from the article I see that even children are not protected from being used as political weapons.
Ha!
Oh, and Dan Kelly being on the Republican Payroll as recently as December (traveling the state with WI embarrassment Gableman and giving speeches), and being a paid consultant on the Fraud Electors scheme, and saying the things he has said about abortion and crime isn’t tipping HIS hand any?