"WMC Sitting Out On Wi. Supreme Court Race" . . This Time

[Dinger]

http://www.wispolitics.com/index.iml?Article=147097

They already have it dominated by rw freaks. This election will be for the chief justice of the Wi. Supreme Court. Do you really believe they're "sitting it out?"
I don't.

[AllyCat]

1. Why on earth would they sit anything out?

Time to watch carefully.

[sybylla]

2. Wisconsin Democracy Campaign people say they're just shifting it to other shady orgs

Heard Mike McCabe say they apparently they took a lot of heat from members for their involvement in judicial races in the past. So the money that usually went to this kind of stuff is simply getting funneled into shadow organizations. And there's nothing new about those bastards either.

There's no way corporations are staying out of this race. Or any judicial race until we have campaign finance reform.

[MadAsHell]

3. In point of fact ...

The election is not exactly for the Chief Justice. The Chief Justice is determined by seniority on the court. If (God forbid) Justice Abrahamson is not reelected, I believe Ann Walsh Bradley has first right of refusal.

I think they maybe trying to tone it down to reduce the heat on campaign reform. They have deep hooks on the court already and real campaign finance reform would limit their influence a great deal more than a single seat on the court.

By the way, I worry about the Superintendent of Public Instruction race as well.

[Dinger]

4. I'm Worried Too

State Superintendent of Schools candidates suck.

P.S. Thanks for the clarification:)

[dragonlady]

5. Who do you favor for Superintendant?

We received a mailing from Van Mobley, and a robocall. Endorsement by Alberta Darling and Glenn Grothman is all I need to know about him. (Bleh.)
On the other hand, a representative of Evers was in attendance at the last meeting of the Milwaukee Dems. I believe there are 5 candidates in all.

[MadAsHell]

7. Well, as is always the case ...

There are things to consider. First, I would discount Van Mobley and Rose Fernandez. They appear to come to the party with agendas that don't scale well to the job. Mobley is a long time republican and is already talking about vouchers as a solution. Fernandez was the president of Wisconsin Coalition of Virtual School Families and seems to be bent on loosening the reins on Home Schooling and Virtual Schools. There are kids that are well served by those approaches but it does leave a lot of kids without a voice.

The other three, Tony Evers, Lowell Holtz, and Todd Price, seem to come at it from the right (correct) direction.

Holtz is the Superintendent of schools for Beloit. He would bring an in-the-trenches point of view. The knock on him is, I don't think his campaign will get any traction.

Todd Price is a professor of Education and is most likely the "progressive" candidate in the race. He seems to have strong pro public school bona fides but if he survives the primary I will be surprised.

Tony Evers is currently the Deputy Superintendent and in a lot of ways has been the operational director of the DPI for several years. Tony has lots of support within the educational community and has just picked up the endorsement of the SAA (School Administrators Alliance). This may be a case of the devil you know. The approach that has held sway in the DPI has not made everyone happy but it is widely seen as making the best of bad policy imposed by NCLB and other bad legislation. Tony also has a professional compaign staff already up and running.

And now the short answer, the race will likely come down to Tony Evers and Van Mobley after the primary. Between the two, Tony Evers hands down.

[dragonlady]

8. Thank you!

An excellent, concise summary. :hi:

[goddess40]

10. Great discription

one thing that Holtz said that rubbed me the wrong way was that now that the QEO is going to be the floor we should get rid of it. I don't know if he liked them to keep the lid on and deny the teachers the right to fair bargaining and now they are working in the teachers favor he wants to get rid of them or if he is just using that as an excuse to dump them while there is a chance.

[MadAsHell]

11. It was an instructive forum ...

I was even less impressed with Mobley after hearing from him. He was not as fire breathing as I had expected but he just did not have a good presence.

Rose really was out there. She really does not seem to like labor much at all.

[ewagner]

6. Don't trust

the WMC-SOBs.....there's no way they will stay out of this race even if they have to use surrogates to do it.

I don't know ANYTHING about the Superintendent of Public Instruction race....are there any good progressives on the ballot that we know of?

[midnight]

9. I've been out of the loop on this race. Thanks for the info.